Hello All!
And so to another week at BTCV Edinburgh. On Tuesday we were out for a walk in the woods (Dunbar) adding to the towering habitat piles that now dot the landscape. A small amount of attention was given to the burn, however that is now running free and clear so should need very little maintenance from now on. Today saw many new faces (welcome guys!) and a new driver in the form of VO Rob, the minibus arrived back safe and sound and everyone showed a keen interest in coming out again so it can’t have been all that bad.
Unfortunately we have no pictures to shown you as there was a battery shortage for the camera, sorry about that, we’ll hope to get this sorted shortly.
Wednesday saw us back at Lochend Woods at Dunbar (variety being the spice of life), again with quite a small group. We spent the day making, you guessed it, habitat piles (everyone is becoming quite proficent at this! Practice makes perfect as they say!) out of brash and logs from the forest floor. Then someone found a fox hole! I’m not sure how well used it was, but if the fox in question ever fancied moving home; there are plently of lovely new wood piles from which to choose.
Lunchtime was spent in the field, listening to the tranquil country sounds of construction machinery and trying to prevent a large St. Bernard puppy from eating Chris’s lunch.
In the afternoon, after another short session of ‘pick-up-sticks’; we went on a nature walk round the estate. This time it tested the volunteers tree identification. Along with the usual Wednesday jokes. And, suprisingly, some NEW ones from Willie.
Again apologies for the lack of photos, the battery shortage continues.
For those of you that have been to Dunbar and have been unsure what the species below is:
I can now confirm that it is ‘Yellow Figwort’ Schrophularia vernalis. I checked this with the local record office (The Wildlife Information Centre – where all the records from our nature walks go). According to them, Yellow Figwort is not common – as they have only 22 records of the plant (and many of these are over 15 years old) within the Lothian and Borders region. So there we go!
Thursday was spent at Polkemmet Country Park…and it was Tim’s last day with us as a V.O. Thank you all for being patient while we tried to find enough work for the day! We spent the morning in the north of the park. There was a distinct lack of rhododendron, until we found a nice big bush near the pond – which kept everyone busy until lunchtime. Lunchtime was spent in the playground, the flying fox getting the most attention.
In the afternoon we took the van down to the bottom car park, and continued playing ‘hunt the rhody’ for the remainder of the afternoon. Perhaps if we had not been so keen earlier in the year there would be more work to do now?
Some interesting fungi from the day – Scarlet Elfcups and Turkeytail Fungus.