I took a trip down to Gailes Marsh on Sunday the 18th of April to see how the kidney vetch seedlings were doing a month after they were sown.
After early reports of superb germination rates I was expecting to see a green haze over the scrapes that had been sown with seed. However the number of seedlings isn't actually that dense, with some of the scrapes having very few. Did birds take the germinating seed? On closer inspection many seedlings show signs of something feeding on them, with little chunks missing from the primary leaves. Wood mice or voles perhaps? Hopefully whatever is munching on them will find something better to eat and leave the remaining seedlings to develop in peace!
I had a walk along the length of the wildlife hedge that we planted. Almost all of the hedge plants have new bursting leaves, which was great to see! 18 (mostly blackthorns) out of the 330 planted were still looking dormant, but fingers crossed they'll be fine. Tree protectors have been put on each of the crab apples to prevent rabbits doing too much damage.
The horses were taken off at the end of March, but still copious amounts of horse poo everywhere. Wildlife seen on the reserve included: At least 13 sand martins (zooming in and out of the artificial sand bank), skylarks, snipe, mute swan, moorhens, mallards, coal tits, blue tits and great tits, gold crests, goldfinches, bullfinches, chaffinches, blackbirds, carrion crows and lots of queen buff-tailed bumblebees.
