Conservation Volunteers and Other Animals

Yesterday I completed a two day hedge laying course, organised as part of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's River Ouse Floodplains project and run by York Wood Crafts . We had a stretch of very old hawthorn hedge to lay in the traditional 'Midland' style. Outward facing lower branches are removed We started by removing all the outward growing branches from the base of the hedge, leaving the tall uprights. There were various techniques for dealing with each hawthorn tree, the main one involved sawing through the trunk about a foot above ground level, leaving just enough for the tree to survive when bent over. A wedge is removed above the cut and the trunk split right down into the roots of the tree. It's then very carefully bent over, ensuring that it opens up the split down the required line and doesn't just snap off. A laid tree still attached to its base On the first day some of the larger trees were removed completely with a chainsaw, but on the second da

The weather station As someone who spends a lot of time outdoors, the weather is important to me, so I decided it was time I got a weather station. I started running it from 1st January, so I now have the first full month of data. It generates a lot of statistics, not all of which are useful, but here are some of the more interesting ones for the month of January: Lowest temperature -3.3°C on 17th Highest temperature 15.4°C on 27th Highest daily temperature range 10.4°C on 27th Highest wind gust 31.1mph on 27th Highest daily rain 16.5mm on 7th Longest dry period 4 days to 18th Longest wet period 10 days to 10th Total monthly rainfall 71.1mm Changeable weather on Allerthorpe Common