It is always a bad sign on a Wednesday morning if you have to de-frost the car prior to leaving for GG....! This week was definately time to dig out those extra layers of clothing, gloves, thick socks for the boots and most important of all, a warm hat. Although the car thermometer was showing just above freezing as we arrived, the stiff northerly wind was dragging the temperature sub zero. It was a good thing that Mark had an energetic work package for us and we were soon spread around the field beavering away in an attempt to stay warm. The central area of this meadow had been mechanically flailed earlier, so our task was to rake up as much as possible and transport it to the edges. This site is basically split into three different areas - each one receiving particular attention on a three year "crop cycle". As with other meadow sites we have worked on recently, the idea of raking up the cut grass is to deny the ground the nutrients that would be added by letting the material compost. This allows the wild flowers to grow quicker than the surrounding grass thereby giving them a head start come the growing season. Although numbers were down a little, good progress was made with the task in hand and it will be interesting to see how well our efforts pay off during next year's visits.
Many thanks to Mark for the photographs this week.
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