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Heather

Work, Weather and Health

People seemed to like my blog post about the Red Grouse & the BBNP last week so I thought I'd show you the final stages of the heather restoration progress. The picture below shows the next stage of filtration, in the basket you'll see the brash that we don't want and in front of the wood is the finer seed that will then need to be fully dried before being bagged and stored for future restoration. 

Today however we were building a bridge over a fanatic waterfall in.... any guesses where?... I only had my phone but tried my best to get a slow shutter photo without a tripod.  

I'll post up some more picture of the bridge once its finished tomorrow. We did run into a few problems, including a broken drill so we'll have to re-visit in the morning. 

Something to look forward to, I'll be starting a new winter feeding station like last year, but in a different location. I have a few birds in mind that I'd like to photograph but to be honest, I'll be happy enough to just get a Blue Tit in the lens. 

Heather Monitoring @ Coity Mountain

Heather Monitoring @ Coity Mountain

Had such a great time on a beautiful day up the Coity Mountain conducting an annual survey on the status of our Heathland. Though our Red Grouse survey won't be conducted till later in the year, the Heathland status up there seems fairly typical in that, while the majority of the mature heather seems in great condition and covering a large area, most of the outskirts have already been taken over by spreading bracken and on the steeper hills there is hardly any heather present at all. Bracken rolling has already taken place on some of the problematic area's but pockets of bracken inside the heathland itself still pose a threat. We actually saw 4 Red Grouse on this trip that bursted out of the heather in their typical fashion but this wasn't the main focus on the trip. Nice to see some Wheatear still onsite and also Kestrels were abundant. 

Here are a few images from my Heather Monitoring day out with Gwent Wildlife Trust