November has been a rather wet and chilly month, with some
unusually warm spells, which again has flown by!
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| Part of the displays available at the mammal weekend. |
We kick started the month with our mammal weekend. At the
event, we had members from the Harlow Badger Group and Essex Bat Group with
displays and lots of information for our visitors! The weather wasn’t particularly
in our favour, with rain, rain and more rain forecast but nonetheless a few
visitors wrapped up to learn all about these and other mammals found in the Parndon
Wood area. We also showcased some of our
favourite clips from our camera traps featuring a whole host of mammals from
within the reserve. Have a look at the DVD next time you’re in!
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| Our delicious afternoon tea! |
As the weather turns colder, we try to help the feathered
residents of the reserve and held a make your own bird feeder weekend at the
end of November. Visitors got stuck in to make a tasty treat for their birds to
take home with them. Delicious! This activity is available throughout the
winter months, so if you missed the weekend, just ask staff on your next visit
and they’ll help you to make a fat ball too!
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| A slightly sorrowful sight |
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| The new revamped bug hotel! |
Throughout the wintry weather, our volunteers have been
working as hard as ever. They spent a few days clearing out reeds and weeds
from the large pond overlooked by the main hide, so now you can see the pond!
Now that most of the leaves are fallen from the trees, towards the end of the
month we started our coppicing work! It may look like we’re cutting down trees
but coppicing is a process where, by cutting the tree at ground level when
there are no leaves, the tree is able to regrow. This woodland management
technique has been used for hundreds of years. Although previously used to
supply the area with a continuous amount of firewood, we coppice our Hornbeam
to provide a variety of habitats for a variety of life, helping to maintain a
high level of biodiversity within the reserve. Not only have our lovely
volunteers done all of this work, we also managed to fit in time to refurbish
our bug hotel! It’s been looking quite sorry for itself in recent months, so
was long overdue a face lift! We completely took it apart and refilled it. Have
a look at it on your next visit and see how many more nooks and crannies we’ve
made for wildlife to live in!
The wildlife sightings have been quite normal, however we
were amazed to see butterflies having a final flutter in mid-November! The mild
weather has brought them out extremely late. We’ve also had visitors seeing the
blue pheasants again, a fox and a selection of fallow and muntjac deer. A
female sparrow hawk was spotted in the non-intervention area too, as well as
lots of woodpeckers and woodland birds. Now the leaves are fallen, the birds
are much easier to spot!
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| Greater spotted Woodpecker looking for some food in a fence post |
