I have recently joined the Woodland Trust as a 'Woodwatcher' which involves checking the weekly planning lists to prevent any major developments impacting or destroying Ancient Woodland and communicating as appropriate. I also carry out extra work for the Woodland Trust for other counties and help gather information for court cases and publications. Only 1.9% of Ancient Woodland remains in Cornwall so it is vital that we look after this unique habitat that is irreplacable - the interactions between plants, animals, soils, climate and people are unique and have developed over hundreds of years and therefore cannot be recreated.
I have also joined BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) as a Practical Conservation Volunteer Officer (VO), taking out volunteers to beautiful locations in Cornwall in need of conservation. It's great being out in the fresh air, making a difference and meeting and talking to like-minded people about the environment and conservation.
I will be carrying out a wide range of conservation tasks two days a week along with 'paperwork' half a day a week. My aim is to post what I have done on each of these occasions.
During my time with the UKs biggest conservation charity I have been fortunate enough to complete a lot of training such as First Aid, Winter Tree ID, Dry Stone Walling, Hedgelaying, Coppicing and dead-hedging, Risk Assessment, Level 2 Diploma in Work Based Environmental Conservation and ILM Level 2 award in Team Leading.
August 2010:
17.08.10
Today we were based a
t a Local Nature Reserve in Tintagel called The Prince of Wales Quarry. When we arrived we were taken around the site and the areas we would be working while being given health and safety information. We then went to get the equipment from the minibus and stored it in the old engine house! My main task was to restore a public footpath that had been made from slate steps. The steps had become overgrown with grass and therefore made them smaller. Also as this was a slate quarry, slate had crumbled down onto the steps that needed removing as they were a bit unstable. Enter spades, shovels and hands!Later on I did a bit of raking up after another person strimming. This helped spread the seeds of the wildflowers, reduce bramble growth and eventually help to provide nutrient poor soils.
Other tasks that were being carried out today included making a wall out of slate slabs to deter the public climbing the unsteady slate piled way up high and prevent it from avalanching onto the path! Bracken was also crushed in a logical sequence in order to have different heights and thickness of bracken to encourage biodiversity, especially for the Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterflies. A manual winch was used to move 2 slate boulders that had gradually moved into the public pathway and a wooden stump was removed from a pathway by digging around it and mashing it up.
25.08.10
Hedgerows are used to provide wildlife corridors for wildlife in order to link up fragmented habitat.
Today we were working on land owned by Tehidy Country Park. We met the ranger who explained that the land we were working on is part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (now called Environmental Stewardship Schemes) in order to manage the land in an environmentally friendly manner.
Around three years ago, baby trees and hedge plants (blackthorn, hawthorn and more) were planted along a field border to provide corridors for wildlife and create Carbon Sinks. These trees and the area surrounding the trees/hedge plants had become overgrown and strangled by brambles and other weeds which took away light. This was cleared last year but there has not been enough people/funding to maintain the hedgerow. Today involved clearing away all of the brambles and weeds which is easier said then done as the trees are still very small and we had to be careful first to actually find them (!), then, not to pull them out or give them the chop! It's also quite a pinickity job as the brambles have to be unravelled from the tiny trees first.
There were around 16 of us today and the border was around half a mile long and 2 metres wide. We were there from 9.30 until 4.15. This is equivalent to around 100 hours work which if one person was doing it full-time it would take around 2.5 weeks, we did loads in 1 day!! However we still didn't manage to finish and will be returning next week! -->
-->27.08.10
Above: Nurdles.
It is quite common to find skeletons of animals with stomach contents still visible filled with the indigestible plastic as seen here in this dead Albatross.
Albatross skeleton with stomach contents still visible.
And this picture above is what was found in the stomach contents of a dead whale.
Fishing lines were a common find but surprisingly I just kept finding thin plastic sticks like lolly pop sticks and do you know what they were?...they were cotton wool buds without the cotton of course but people need to stop throwing these down their toilet as they just end up in the sea or as litter on the beach.
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