Random birds seen and heard last in the days of March

The Chiffchaff have continued to arrive on migration in good numbers over the last week or so and they can be heard all round the village, including at Underway Meade. I tried to get a photo of one but they always seem to be obscured by twigs as they sit up fairly high in a bush or tree announcing their presence and calling for a mate!

I also failed to get a picture of a goldcrest which was flitting about in a conifer tree singing its high pitch, lispy song, as I walked along the lanes. 

I did however manage to get this picture of a treecreeper yesterday as I walked round Scrapton. It was working its way up an oak tree, moving like a little mouse, whilst looking for insects in the rough bark. Treecreepers usually work their way up a tree and when they move on to another tree they fly to the lower trunk or branches and make their way back up again. It has a bright white front but when searching for insects its back is really well camouflaged against the tree. 

Today I walked out to the sewage works at Nimmer as I was told there had been a pair of Gadwall seen there recently. This is not a duck that usually frequents this spot and it is a new bird for my parish bird list so I was delighted to see the pair were still there and I managed to get a picture! It goes to show that even though I can't travel to my usual birding spots, there is always something to see locally if you listen out and watch carefully.

Yellow is the colour of spring - mostly

Walking through Underway Meade on my one daily walk today, to the sound of chiffchaff in the woods, I realised that many of the flowers in bloom at the moment are yellow, so following on from the last post with the Marsh marigolds, here are a few more to brighten up everyone's day.

Lesser celandine

The Lesser celandine's flower head only opens fully in sunlight, so on a dull day they are not as obvious as they were today. Notice the nettles are already getting ready to smother them and then we won't see the Celandine again until next spring.

The Celandine and the primroses on the mound behind the pond are looking especially beautiful at the moment. I've unlocked the lower gate so you can get up closer for a better look without having to climb the stile, but please no picking!

The daffodils around the benches are also providing a nice splash of colour and even the ones we only planted a few weeks ago, courtesy of Claire from Combe Dingle Nursery, are flowering, albeit on rather short stems!

Another plant in flower near the chippings pile, not yellow though, is the blackthorn, always, I think, a harbinger of cold weather and, having seen the weather forecast for the weekend , I reckon that is about right!

First post for a long time!

Hello to any new readers and welcome back to anyone who used to view this blog some years ago!  Apologies for the long gap but, due to the current Coronavirus situation which is resulting in most of us having restricted outdoor access, I have decided to start blogging again to highlight the wonderful local wildlife that can be seen in the parish of Combe St Nicholas, and especially in Underway Meade.

The sunshine has seen a number of butterflies around this week such as this Peacock butterfly feeding on a Butterbur flower. This photo was taken near the pond in the Meade and it is the first time that I can recall seeing Butterbur in this location- so interesting from two points of view!

Here's another close up of the Butterbur for the botanists amongst you.It looks like the almond scented Winter Heliotrope that is found in bloom in the local verges in January.

There was also a Comma butterfly near the pond this morning, which has just awoken from hibernation. For more information click here.

Lastly, the vibrant colour of the Marsh marigolds is always great to see in spring and there is a small patch in the Meade pond out at the moment.

Woodland path work at Underway Meade

Thanks to four of the Neroche Volunteers, and two of our own volunteers, we had a really successful session levelling out the woodland path and building new steps at Underway Meade today.

Levelling the path

New steps being built

Path almost complete

The work went so well we even had time to collect up all the brash produced from the hedge laying sessions into one pile. The next task, which we hope to do in the next few weeks, will be to hire a chipper and put the resulting wood chips on the path to improve the surface.

Collecting up the brash

Underway Meade- Stop press

Due to the good weather today, Good Friday and the poor weather forecast for the rest of the weekend, we decided to try and finish preparing the wildflower patch today.

We finished picking out the obvious stones from the patch and then set to with the rotovator.

Digging the stones out by hand

Rotovating to prepare the soil for sowing

The job was finished in two hours and we can now rake it over and plan our sowing event.

Underway Meade Jan - Mar 2016

If 2015 was a busy year, then the first quarter of 2016 was even more so, but it was also tinged with sadness with the death of one of the earliest Trustees for the Meade, Gerry Sayers. We will be commemorating his contribution to the Trust in particular and to the parish in general, by placing a memorial bench in the Meade. A collection will be arranged for anyone who wishes to contribute - details will be on the village noticeboard.

Good news, received just before the end of last year, was that we had been successful in our bid for a grant of £4,000 from the Somerset County Council's Health and Well Being Fund due to support from Nigel Pearson, our County Councillor. The grant was kindly topped up by the Parish Council, Gala Committee and local donations and has been used to improve the access to the Meade with new gates and paths. Work started at the end of February and was completed in just over a week, thanks to B.E Powell and Sons contractors. It means that you can now get in and out of the Meade along the road at both ends and in the middle by the dog waste bin, so there’s no need to walk along the main road to the Clayhanger turning or to make a detour to the bin. It inevitably looks a bit raw at the moment, and we have quite a bit of tidying up and fine tuning yet to do, but it’s all usable and we are pleased to report that more people than ever are using the Meade as a result and we have received some very positive feedback.

Fencing before path work began

Cutting through the new access point

Digger on site

New path taking shape

Work continues

New access point and path

In the middle of February we held a hedge laying training day, paid for by the Blackdown Hills AONB Natural Futures project.Two experts from the Blackdown Hills Hedge Association came and showed 4 of the Meade volunteers and 4 others how to lay a hedge in the Devon style and as a result, we not only got trained, but also a good stretch of one of our hedges was laid free of charge!

George and Richard our trainers

Volunteers gathering for the hedge laying training day

Working hard

Part of the finished hedge

Some of the brushwood that was cut down will be used for dead hedging along one section of the recently fenced dog-free picnic area. The rest will be chipped, once we have arranged for the loan of a chipper, and then spread on the woodland path to improve the surface.

We had a lot of rain in January / February and this caused some flooding which we are trying to deal with by laying some pipes to re-direct run off, should it happen again.

Flooding due to heavy rainfall and run off

Position where pipes are being laid

Pipe laying

Other jobs that have taken place include the annual hedge cut along the road edge. The contractor, Ian Farmer, has started to shape the hedge for us with a sloping top, which is more suitable for nesting birds as it encourages the rain to run off and it will also help it thicken up in future years.

Hedge cutting 

Lastly, you may have noticed some of us clearing stones from the bare earth patch alongside the pond. This is being done prior to bringing a rotavator on site (with thanks to the Sunday School Wood team for its loan) to prepare the ground for sowing wild flower seeds. Hopefully some of the children from Combe School will come down in April to help us sow the seeds - watch the noticeboards for details.

Wildflower patch

2015 at Underway Meade

2015 has been a busy year for Underway Meade, as this month by month report illustrates.
January
We spent time edging the path in the wood with dead hedging, using cuttings from our hedge-laying endeavours. We also had many positive comments about the beautiful snowdrops on the banks.

February

We continued hedge-laying along the boundary when weather permitted, it was slow going though!

March

In March we were successful in our bid to Monkton Elms Garden Centre for free hedging saplings which we proudly collected in person.

We also worked on putting in some dead hedging around the pond, both to protect some of the saplings we planted and also to provide a useful habitat for wildlife. The dead hedging also provides a good boundary between the pond and the footpath.

The pond itself was looking quite bare but we were very pleased to spot some frog spawn at the end of the month,which, despite not hatching out, proved that there are frogs around that visit the pond, so if we could improve the vegetation in it we might see tadpoles in future years.

April 

In April the crab apple tree by the small bridge over the stream was in full bloom and very pretty it looked too.

Children had found some of our remaining hedge cuttings and built a very impressive den in the woods.

May

The sight of some lovely patches of bluebells in the wood made all the hard work of the previous winter, thinning out the trees to give more light to the plants, very worthwhile.

Out in the meadow though, the grass was growing apace and, as we had decided not to use sheep until we could complete our botanical surveys, we had to find another way of controlling the growth. Luckily our call for help was answered by Ian Jones, who, with his trusty tractor, came not once but four times during the season to cut the grass for us.

We also took turns to regularly mow paths through the Meade to make it easier for visitors to follow a route when walking on the site. We think this was much appreciated especially by the many dog walkers who now pop in regularly. 

June - July

We are grateful to Colin volunteer ecologist, who has been undertaking a detailed survey of plant species during the year and so far he has identified over 160 species. A full list will be added to our web page on the parish website in due course.

We have had some other interesting wildlife visitors during the year as well, including this colourful Mullein moth, found on some figwort when we were clearing the stream of false watercress.

Also, this beautiful Grey wagtail which was enjoying a feast of flies which appeared over the pond in some warm weather. 

In July we were also very proud to be presented with a cheque from Wessex Water for £450 to buy bird and bat boxes for the Meade. This came from their Community Grid Fund, which was available to bid for from any community which would be affected by the installation work of a new water grid for the region. 

August

We have been grateful to receive much help and advice during the year from the Blackdown Hills AONB team, which has included assistance with bidding for funds, supporting us with events and also, providing us with  free training courses, such as one on scything.

Thankfully Lynn, seen here trying out her new skills,  returned with all her fingers and toes still intact!

September

The dry summer weather took its toll on the pond which became covered in algae as the flow from the stream was severely reduced. However, this picture does show that some of our plantings of lily pads and sedge, have taken root successfully.

The upside of the dry weather though was the chance to install

a new gate into the wood to allow more walking routes. 

This was single handedly tackled by Bill and we are grateful to him for all his hard work, on all kinds of tasks over the year, as well as the loan of tools and provision of storage space for our gear.

October

We held our first public event during half term "Build a Bug Hotel". 

Unfortunately the weather could not have been wetter

and the hoped for crowds were somewhat thin on the ground. However, some brave volunteers and a number of Friends as well as some determined children, helped us build a splendid "hotel" and we all went home feeling very pleased with ourselves.

November - December

Finally, over the last few weeks we have been gathering all the bird and bat boxes

that we have been able to purchase, courtesy of Wessex water and when weather has allowed, been steadily putting them up. First of all we have put up a Tawny owl box in the big ash tree. This entailed use of a ladder and ropes and pulleys to get such a big box high up in the tree.

 Next we have put up five open fronted boxes, mostly in trees with ivy, to attract robins and wrens and maybe even starlings. (Thanks again to Bill!).

All in all it has been a satisfying year and we look forward to next year, when we hope, if we are successful with our bid for more funding, to be able to make a start on the new access gate and path.

Thanks to all our volunteers, regular or occasional, everyone's help is very welcome. So if you want to join us on a Saturday morning for an hour or so, please get in touch!