Friday 28th Feb - Sunday 2nd March.
This was our third year running a residential supporting the Cumbria Wildlife Trust at their nature reserve at Hutton Roof. But the work site was on a different location to previously. We set off on Friday morning and were met by Wal the Warden who was able to load the tools and equipment in the trailer of his vehicle. The walk to the site was difficult owing to the wet conditions underfoot and the deep mud it had produced on the paths. When we got to site we were able to see the daunting task awaiting us. Coppice workers had cleared large amounts of Hazel from the limestone pavement; this had been stacked into windrows. Our task was to sort the piles into useful products like charcoal, firewood, bean poles, washing poles and walking sticks. Then burn the remaining brash. This clears the pavement to allow the violets to grow which is the food plant of the High Brown Fritillary. In fact last year other Fritillaries had been seen on the site as well.The plan is to develop a number of coppice coups around the site and then link them with limestone pavements by opening rides to allow the butterfly populations to move around the site. This is another of the tasks we started, which involved felling trees along a footpath track, but leaving strategic ones which are hand holds. We worked all through the weekend and could see a real difference in the work we had had done. But we would also need several more weekends to complete the work.
Our accommodation was at Arnside YHA which provided us with a great base. The weather was fantastic on occasions and meant we could work in t shirts, whilst at the same time seeing snow on the hills of the Lake District. The fires gave us a chance to cook potatoes for our lunch and we were joined by the regular CWT volunteers on Saturday to make a good group.
Already looking forward to next year.
We were joined by 14 volunteers for the residential.
Click Here to see other photos of the residential.