If you’re a keen reader of the blog you may have noticed there was no entry for January. I did in fact visit Snipe Dales last month but it was not for my usual ‘day in the life of’. In case you didn’t know, we have recently launched a ‘Wilder Lincolnshire’ podcast available on all of the usual platforms, or alternatively you can listen here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lincs-wildlife-trust. For our latest episode we discussed the reintroduction of beavers in Lincolnshire as part of the Wild Wrendale project, and then looked at the similar work the Trust is doing without beavers to ‘slow the flow’ and make our brooks babble. This meant heading down to Sow Dale and getting nice and muddy as we recorded an interview with James on site. It was great to come back to somewhere I had been on my first ever month here all the way back in July and realise just how much I had learnt in that time.

The first thing I noticed after getting out the car for my latest trip was the sheer volume of noise coming from the Country Park. The birds are definitely getting louder, teasing spring's return. I don’t think I’m going to be getting my day in the snow before I finish in June! I was greeted by volunteer Andy at James’ office, who explained that James was showing some men from the county council to a bridge that they were there to fix, which had been damaged from the recent floods. Whilst we waited, we had been asked to collect shoots of willow from the reserve, that we would be planting near the stream at Sow Dale. Willow is remarkably resilient so even when parts of snapped off it will grow from the ground when replanted. As you can see pictured below James provided me with a nice bright, pink bucket to carry out the task with.

Once we had collected enough, we headed back to the truck and travelled all together to Sow Dale. The hope is that over time, the willow roots will lock sections of the bank and eventually create the effect that James discussed in the podcast (sorry for another plug!). We clustered a lot of the willow around the dams and all being well nature will do its thing and give us the same effect we are already seeing further down the stream.

Whilst we were at Sow Dale, James also got us to redistribute the gorse from one side of the valley to the opposite side where the landscape was quite bare in a hope to diversify it. It was a bad time to not have any gloves with me, but thankfully Andy did most of the handling of the gorse whilst I dug holes into the ground to re-plant it. It was incredible to think how the work we were doing in that moment could grow out naturally and hopefully be seen on a grand scale in years to come - and was well worth the struggle digging through the clay for!

Back at Snipe Dales, our main job for the afternoon would be to fix miles of fencing in the reserve in preparation for the cattle that will arrive in spring. But first, we had to clear an area at the back of the reserve where there are ruins of St Margaret’s Church. In the coming weeks, a local history group would be coming to Snipe Dales to do survey work, scanning to find the old church and they wanted to be able to reach the area where this was. It was the first time I had been in this part of the reserve and it was a really unique place with a gravestone still visible and snowdrops growing around it.

The next part was the big job of the day. You may remember in my blog back in December I mentioned James using the tractor to carry fence stakes to a central location on the site so they would be easier to take to the specific places they needed to be. Well, since I had last visited, a volunteer had done just that. I couldn’t believe when James told me they had walked around the miles of fencing that is on the reserve and checked each post for any sign of damage and marked the ones that needed replacing. Each time I visit I only get a glimpse into the work and planning that goes onto a reserve but it was great to see something link back through the months and find out what all of that was building towards.

We had a crumpled piece of paper that acted as a map where one of the volunteers had scribbled where the posts that needed fixing were. It definitely felt like a strange sort of treasure hunt, where the prize at the end was knocking a fence post into the muddy ground. Speaking of mud, parts of the site near the fence line were extremely hard to walk through so I would definitely recommend sticking to the paths, or you will look how my wellie did below!

I can’t remember exactly how many fence posts needed to be put in, but it was definitely a full afternoon’s work. The tool we used was very cool and had been donated to James. Unfortunately, I don’t know the technical name for it unless it is called a post hammerer, but it is a hollow cylinder with a top on one end. You basically hold the tool over the fence post and bring it down with some force and hammer it into the ground – hence my creative name for it! I put a picture below of the tool leaning against the nice new fence post that had been fitted on the right of the damaged one to support it.

My visit this month flew by and it was great to get really hands on and stuck in. The car park was full of cars due to it being half term and it is great to see so many people appreciating nature and enjoying being outdoors during their holiday. James does remarkably well to manage Snipe Dales as both a reserve for wildlife and nature and also a place for people who love spending time on a nature reserve. Unfortunately, the morning after my visit, there was a lot of rubbish that was found dumped near one of the streams in the Country Park. We all have to work together to keep and preserve these wonderful places, and it is the responsibility of every single one of us to look after the reserve, not just the Warden. Please take your rubbish home with you and keep these places a haven for wildlife and nature.