Conservation Volunteers and Other Animals

I'm taking part in the Wildlife Trust's "30 Days Wild" campaign, trying to get involved with nature in some way every day of this month. Day 22: A wet and windy day, stuck inside doing paperwork. I was getting a bit desperate for something wild to do today, but finally went down to the badger sett, put out some peanuts and grapes, and left the camera trap to see what happens. The badgers haven't had grapes before, so this is an experiment. Apparently they prefer seedless grapes . Next morning they'd taken the lot. "Ah, you knew I preferred seedless!"   Day 23: I went to Fulford Ings today and did another four hours of Himalayan balsam pulling. The vegetation along the river bank has grown phenomenally in the last few weeks. A lot of the tansy which we planted two years ago, and which got sprayed with herbicide last year, has now made a remarkable recovery and is well established amongst the other vegetation. My clearing of the balsam wasn

I'm taking part in the Wildlife Trust's "30 Days Wild" campaign, trying to get involved with nature in some way every day of this month. Day 15: I went back to Fulford Ings today, to top-up another of the tansy clumps we planted last August and enclose it in rabbit netting. Now that the Oxeye daisies are in flower, the meadow is looking magnificent. I pulled some Himalayan balsam, but the pollen count was off the scale, so I was forced to retreat before I'd got much done. The meadow at Fulford Ings Day 16: I spent another morning at Fulford Ings, putting in more tansy plants and my last two rings of rabbit netting. In the afternoon I planted more of the other wild flowers I've grown from seed in my garden, mainly Viper's-bugloss and Greater knapweed. Protecting tansy with rabbit netting Day 17: This evening I went to a bat survey and roost count at Kexby Bridge, organised by the East Yorkshire Bat Group. Two other people turned up, but n

I'm taking part in the Wildlife Trust's "30 Days Wild" campaign, trying to get involved with nature in some way every day of this month. Day 8: Back in March, I bought some packets of native wild flower seeds, to make my garden more attractive to insects. They were sown in seed trays and then pricked out into plug plant trays, so I produced 30 plants of each variety. Today I've been planting them out, filling in gaps between herbaceous plants in the flower beds. I hope they will grow and spread around the garden in time. Great mullein The spectacular Mullein moth caterpillar Oxeye daisies Viper's-bugloss and Greater knapweed Day 9: On 20th May I attended a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust volunteer workday at Calley Heath. Some of us raked up and burned cow dung while others replaced a section of the perimeter fence. The fencing job wasn't quite finished, so today I joined the Field Officer and we completed it together. There were a f

I’m taking part in the Wildlife Trust’s “30 Days Wild” campaign, trying to get involved with nature in some way every day of this month. Day 1: For the first of my “30 Days Wild” I was stuck indoors most of the day waiting for parcels to be delivered. It was a wet and windy day, and I thought I might have to resort to hugging a tree or dancing in the rain, but in the evening I managed to get down to Badger Wood and check the camera trap. The adolescent badgers have had a “Random Act of Wildness” of their own. Badgers playing tag Day 2: Today was my first “Balsam Bashing” day of the year at Fulford Ings. Last year I was rather late in clearing the area and much of the Himalayan balsam had already gone to seed. It was no surprise to find patches growing wherever I’d left heaps last summer, but it was easier to clear those than the scattered clumps that would have appeared without last year’s work. Much of the balsam is still very small and difficult to get out of longer grass,