Getting Gailes Marsh ready for Small Blues

On the 17th of January I met up with Gill Smart, the SWT reserve manager for South West Scotland for a planning session at the Gailes Marsh reserve.

Some of the horses grazing at Gailes
The reserve is grazed by 7 to 20 horses during the autumn and winter which is great for keeping rank grass under control and encourages wildflowers. Importantly, the horses churn up the ground creating lots of bare patches which are great for germination of new kidney vetch seedlings.

After a walk round the reserve we discussed where the digger would strip turf and some of the top soil off for sowing kidney vetch seed. The excess soil from the strips will be built into a south-facing bank which will also be sown with KV seed. The main part of the reserve that we will focus on is an open area of species-rich grassland in the south west. (shown below)
To protect the site from winds a hawthorn hedge will be planted along the south west border of the reserve. Three young hawthorn plants will go in per metre on the west side of the fence. The fence should hopeflly protect them a bit from hungry horses next Winter!

Another area in the centre of the reserve was identified where a long 70m long scrape and bank can be created that can be sown with KV seed.(see below). The final part of the reserve that will get the digger's attention will be up in the north west corner near the gate (where the horses are in the photos above).

All of the digger work was dependent upon the snowy weather we've had stopping for a while, so it was great to hear from Gill in early March that they had managed to do some of the scrapes and banks in the south west corner of the reserve..
Unfortunately due to a misunderstanding with the digger operator the orientation of the strips is 90 degrees to the original plan, so that the banks are now east-facing. They might also be a bit shorter than had been planned. We will see how we get on with these. There wasn't time to do the 70m long strip in the middle of the reserve or do any of the bits in the north west corner so these could be done in the autumn or next spring.

There will still be plenty of work to be done on the 20th of March on the work party day!