Clearing Bramble Continued :-)>

Greetings all,

      Once again I had a wonderful time volunteering at Long Lane Pastures with my family. (http://www.longlanepasture.org/index.html)

Even my youngest were eager to get involved and headed straight in with one of the most important volunteering jobs at such a site….the litter picking duties….plastic grabbers were a blur as they whizzed through picking up the waste of less caring people.

My eldest son and I were once again clearing Bramble to help make way for the youngling trees and to prevent them from being strangled out.

I tell you it’s better than any trip to the gym for shedding a few pounds and in no time at all we had made a significant head way through a pretty scratchy and stingy job pausing only to watch the many birds that passed our way.

We saw a wonderful flock of Starlings getting ready for their big journey and they were occasionally joined by Tits and even at one point Gold Finches.

Around 11:30am when they had all settled down on the local roof tops the Sparrow Hawk glided through and with one brief loop singled out a starling and went in for the kill….we don’t know if it was successful as the Starlings all went flocking mad and we couldn’t see where the Sparrow hawk ended up….. but. as we didn’t see it again I’m guessing one Starling isn’t going on holiday this year.

In our clearing duties we also came across a handsome Hawthorn Shield bug and this time I even managed to get a shot of it and of the beautiful Brown Banded Carder Bee which I must admit has hit the number one spot for my favourite bees.

We also found some tiny old nests and soon with help from some of the forums I’m hoping to know who made them.

It’s been a top day and tomorrow I’m going back for more….so my next blog will be tomorrow…LOL

Be Happy,
Richard 'RAGS' Askew