Do anything you wanna do

The view from Scout

This  morning I was up at Scout talking to a landowner about a planting plan for the coming Season.

Geoff, Tanya, Ben, Lisa, Alexander and Jared were at Scammonden de-guarding.

Dave, Stephen, Peter, Cath and Hap were over the other side of Scammonden, de-balsaming.

https://youtu.be/rK8pAfhC4Rk

There, there, my dear

Another Saturday morning up Wessenden, and another deer/dire situation. This time we were working and heard a godawful screeching racket the other side of the reservoir. Turned out to be a distressing altercation between some deer and a dog. We think a mother deer and a young un, with the young un running off and taking refuge down by the water (pictured) and the mother scrapping with the dog then running off with the dog in pursuit. They put down dogs that worry sheep, probably no such penalty in this case. The picture was taken with a combination of my telescope with Jess' phone, 20x optical magnification achieved, with arty circle effect too.

It seems to be an effect of the epidemic, more people out enjoying the countryside, including more dogs. The deer had probably got used to a quiet life over that side of the reservoir, but now theres a near constant stream of people and their dogs going over there. And, using our tree guards as dog chew toys when there are not deer to chew on.

We were: myself, Geoff, Jess, Peter, Tanya and Ben in one group. Dave Hap and Stephen in another group. And Philip, Cath, Jared, Alastair and John in  the third and furthestmost group.

Lots of bracken got bashed and guards straightened.

And one of my all time favourites for the music.

https://youtu.be/ZjwUX5MKJOo

Animals

The last few weeks we have been putting deer guards back on some young trees at Butterley, because we could see the bark was getting eaten or rubbed by deer. Lo and behold, this morning in the fog we ran into two of the culprits. The irony of tree planting is that the more successful we are the more deer there will be, which will make it more difficult to establish more new woodland. Hey ho.

We also saw a frog, owls (might have been same owl twice), curlew, and a buzzard.

We were: Philip, Jess, Lee, Cath, Guy and John in one group. Dave, Ben, Hap and Stephen in another, and finally myself, Adrian, Geoff, Jared and Alastair.

https://youtu.be/eBiIFhg0Jnc

Out in the fields

This Saturday we were up the Wessenden Valley, knocking down bracken before it shades out any of our growing young trees.

We were: myself, Philip, Dave, Geoff, Adrian, Hap, Alastair, Jared, Peter, Susan, Stephen, John and Cath.

We divided into two groups to try and adhere to the guidelines.

This week's tune, a heavy rock request from Dianne.

https://youtu.be/bbjrAQf8jBQ