Reserve Warden's Blog - Jo Ferguson
July 2006
July has been a busy month at Little Wittenham Nature Reserve for the Reserve team, with the start of a long spell of hot, dry weather the grassland management hay cut began in earnest.
Church Meadow and Clifton Meadow (our water meadow towards Long Wittenham) have been cut and baled and are now ready to be grazed, which means the welcome return of the Dexter cattle to the Clumps in the next month.
Grassland restoration work on Round Hill this year has taken a slightly different approach, with some new ideas and equipment! Round Hill has avoided the usual hay cut, and instead, the Reserve sheep flock has grazed 5 hectares.
Wildflower seeds are then scattered across this area to improve the quality of the grassland. Usually the whole wildflower meadow is baled, then the bales are transported, separated and scattered, which is pretty time consuming!
But, this year we've used a machine containing large bristles that collect only the seeds from the top of the grasses and flowers. This made the job far quicker and easier than previous years with 140kg of seed collected and scattered in just 1 day!
Seed collection on Round Hill (left). Chris Parker, Nature Reserve Manager.(right)
I’ve noticed that July has definitely been the month for the butterflies, having been swamped by clouds of them while mowing the Green Lane! There are still young to be seen about too, with a large Great-crested Grebe family down on the Thames at Clifton Meadow.
Jo Ferguson is Northmoor Trust's Nature Reserve Assistant Warden
