Our role at the nature reserve is to cut back the long overgrown grass and to then rake it up and remove it from the paddock. The paddock is a very large wetland in the middle of a wide valley, which makes it very susceptible to cold winds!! Most of the grass has already been cut by the RSPB themselves using large machinery, although some hard to reach areas have been left to us to do with petrol strimmers.
The plans for the paddock - with it being a nature reserve - is to have wild flowers growing to promote and encourage wildlife to come to the area. Although it is land owned by the RSPB flourished with birds, there is also other wildlife inhabiting Loch Winnoch including frogs, otters, butterflies and dragon flys. To encourage the wild flowers to grow, they need a very harsh climate, which is already provided by the cold and wet weather, but also to have a soil base which is as lacking in nutrients as possible. When the grass is cut, the cuttings have been left on the ground, which if left to decompose will result in the nutrients seeping into the soil and defeating our goal of a wild and natural habitat.
We had a selection of tools including rakes, pitch forks and petrol strimmers. I had a shot of the petrol strimmer today, my first time using one; it was great fun =D The only problem is after a while it can hurt your back as the strimmer is particularly heavy and the vibrations can make your hands go numb.
We have made good progress in the time we have been there, removing a huge quantity of cuttings and also making progress into those hard to reach areas. The cuttings are piled at the back away from the paddock, for which purpose we are not too sure of just now, but one useful suggestion may be for compost or possibly animal feed.
On a tragic note unfortunately, we found a dead otter at the far side of the paddock, lying at the back. As we were looking, one of the RSPB rangers came over and told us how he had found the otter along with another younger one at the side of the road just along from the nature reserve. What he believes happened was actually quite heart breaking when he told us. Apparently if a younger otter is hit by a car, the parent will try to drag it off the road, the conclusion we could come to with the fact both were found together is that the parent was doing exactly this when she/he too was struck by a car. Rather tragic seeing as this was the first time I'd ever seen an otter, unfortunately it was dead. One thing that struck me was the size of it though, I never knew them to be such large creatures, much bigger than a cat, even the younger one.
On a lighter note though, one of our volunteers, Hannah, has just completed a course in Zoology. She has agreed to go to the nature reserve an extra day each week to do surveys of the wildlife there. One of her priorities is to survey the otter population and determine where their habitat is, where they may look for food and for what reason and what frequency they must cross the busy road. If the survey determines there is a risk to the otters due to their frequency of crossing the road, we can then - if plausable - consider an otter crossing point or to dig a tunnel for the otters to cross safely. Hopefully this shall materialise in the coming weeks and we can help avoid any more tragedys.
Tomorrow we will be in Loch Lomond, we're not sure what exactly we're doing as of yet, but when I'm home again after it, I will be posting a new blog afterwards =)
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