Friday, 13 January 2012
Practical conservation January 2011
04.01.11: Portreath-hedgelaying for the county council in an AONB.
This was a good opportunity to put my hedgelaying training into practice as we were hedgelaying along a long pathway to provide a stockproof fence and create carbon sinks by later planting trees in any gaps. In order to hedgelay it is important to untangle the branches of one tree/shrub from the one next to it so that when it is 'layed' it is easier and doesn't damage the branches. This took a long time today as there was a lot of Ivy that had tangled itself along the trees. There was also a very friendly goat that was following us along the hedgebank as it was in the field directly behind!
07.01.11: Sancreed Beacon - please see previous post 0n 29.10.10
11.01.11: Carrack Gladdon - please see previous post on 14.12.10.
18.01.11: Tehidy - planting trees in gaps of previous task.
This site bought back some memories as my second day was spent here (see August 2010). The original task involved us removing brambles and weeds from young trees and shrubs so today it was nice to go back and see how they have grown. We planted around 500 trees today in gaps where the originally planted trees had not taken or may have been eaten!
21.01.11:Penhale beachsweep. Please see previous post of the Penhale beachsweep on 26.11.10.
25.01.11: Porth Kidney - clearing Blackthorn (ouch!) and Privet, burning and raking.
Porth Kidney Sands is a SSSI and we were here to begin some scrub management to allow maritime heath and grassland habitats to come through rather than allow scrub to take over the dunes and dune grasslands.
We used loppers and bow saws to remove the blackthorn and privet which is a domestic plant which was starting to invade this area. Everything was burnt with a controlled fire which was handy to have as it was very cold today and lovely to sit around at lunchtime!
28.01.11: Porth Kidney - please see above task.
