Rainy Conservation Tasks

The weather has become more autumnal all of sudden, and it's feeling rather cold and wet.

This week I spent two days on my new volunteering job with West Yorkshire Joint Services. Through contacts made on a conservation task, I am now helping out the ecology team. It is just a desk based job - keying biological records from various surveys that have been done.  However, having studied on the MMU UCert programme, it is interesting to now be part of a biological records centre and see first hand how it works.  It is also really useful to read through the different formats of ecological survey report that are done by different consultants, and I am getting more familiar with Recorder and MapInfo in the process, as well as learning species' scientific names. So it's a win:win situation at the moment, and hopefully I can continue to build my skills and make contacts that will be useful in the future.

On Friday I attended the 'Green Team' volunteering day at TCV Skelton Grange. It was raining heavily all day, but luckily they had some alternative indoor activities planned. We set up a make-shift workshop in the cloakroom, and spent most of the day making bird boxes. My partner and I made three boxes, and I'm quite impressed with our efforts - probably not good enough to sell but certainly good enough for the birds!

Yesterday I took part in a task day with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Lower Aire Valley volunteers.  We met at Kippax Leisure Centre, which is overlooked by Townclose Hills, our site for the day and just a few minutes walk away.  I had hoped to be practicing some coppicing skills, but instead we took out some small trees that were growing to close to the path. As well as improving access, this will open up some parts of the site and create sunnier glades where the undergrowth and butterflies can flourish.  The material that we took out was too small to produce log piles, so we made some dead hedges. These will serve the dual purpose of blocking off some unofficial footpaths and thus protecting some areas of woodland, and providing a habitat for invertebrates and hiberating animals. It was another very wet day, and I finished the task cold but exhilerated for being out working all day, making the cup of tea and hot bath once home all the more welcome.

Today I am catching up on my study notes, and tomorrow I am jetting off to Edinburgh for the CIEEM autumn conference.