Leaky dams and pond skaters
18th April 2023
My focus today is preparation for the visit of some Icelandic teachers and getting to grips with writing this blog. Kate is going to show me the ropes, but won’t be available for 15 minutes, so I do a quick check on the progress of our Twayblade and Common Spotted Orchids down in Orchid Glade.
The numbers are the same as last week, although there were several new individuals amongst them. I assume I must have missed some spotted last week, otherwise they have gone absent without leave (eaten perhaps?). Maths was never my strong suit, but ageing eyes inevitably miss things. I note that a number of their shoots have been nibbled - rabbits perhaps? I suspect they just have a nibble and then they spit them out, otherwise there would be no orchids anywhere - judging by the number of lagomorph droppings deposited at Bat Park.
I return to The Barn where Kate explains how this blog thing works. It seems all I have to do is write my thoughts and you read my thoughts, whilst she does all the clever stuff in-between.
On Thursday we have 105 Icelandic teachers visiting the woods. They ought to be quite at home with the current colder weather, although I suspect they may be hoping for a bit of sunshine. I’m leading a group building leaky dams - where the Cross Ride intersects with the Wilderness Stream. If you are by any chance in the woods, go and have a look at them and mark them out of 10.
Leaky dam building requires lots of fresh cut whippy brash to weave their hurdle-like structure which holds some of the water back. Sadly the fresh-cut stuff is several hundred metres from the building site, requiring lots of grunt on my part to drag it over. Fortunately Icelandic teachers are bred from statuesque Viking stock so I’ll be sure to press gang them into assisting me.
As I’m checking the proposed construction site the dinner bell goes. Fortunately I’ve brought sandwiches with me, so elect to sit by the Penstock Ponds for lunch. They are greening up at present (the ponds, not the sandwiches), but not with the interesting water plants I was hoping for. I suspect the water is a bit nitrate and phosphate rich at present, due to a bit of leachate from our reed-bed filtration system. However, it’s early days yet. With luck water fleas and other invertebrate numbers will swell as the weather warms. When they do, they will get stuck into the algae and the water should clear.
In the upper of the ponds, the growing tadpoles look happy enough, as do the massed ranks of pond skaters looking down at them and licking their lips in anticipation of somehow catching one! The Water Starwort is spreading nicely too, so it won’t be long before the ponds and the whole woods will be awash with colour once again.
David spends much of his time walking and cycling round the UK with his wife, Frances. They are mostly busy ticking-off chunks of the coast. Why not follow their progress at www.leggingroundbritain.com
