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Oats and Wetlands at Wyeswood
From:- Annette Murray, Wyeswood Common
Project Officer
Why is Gwent Wildlife Trust sowing its oats on
Wyeswood Common whilst simultaneously digging it up with a JCB? It’s all
in the name of wildlife! Wyeswood Common has now been under the
ownership of Gwent Wildlife Trust for almost 18th months and for the
greater part of this time the work on Wyeswood has gone on in the
background, gathering information about the wildlife interest on the
site and doing the ground work necessary to create a reserve rich in
wildlife for everyone to enjoy. Until recently the regular silage cuts
were the only real sign that anything was “happening” on the reserve!
However a flurry of contractual works earlier this year has resulted in
more visible changes on the ground, both in terms of infrastructure and
habitat creation and restoration - that’s where the oats and JCBs come
in!
Anyone walking on the reserve will notice one of the
fields adjacent to the public footpath has been ploughed. It was
recently sown with Organic oats, complimented by a couple of strips of
wild bird cover. The purpose of these oats is to strip nutrients in the
soil (as well as provide stubble for the birds over the winter) and is
the first of several management treatments that will be used across the
Reserve to restore the grassland.
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Not all habitat creation is geared towards grassland
however. Visitors walking in the field at the bottom of Wyeswood Common
may notice areas where the ground has been excavated and is currently
cordoned off with hazard tape. These works are designed to create wet
areas on the reserve by breaking the field drains and manipulating the
topography to hold back the ground water that flows heavily off the
reserve during the winter.
Please take care if you go to take a closure
look! In time the area around these works will be planted up or allowed
to naturally re-generate with trees and scrub, so the hazard tape is not
designed to be permanent!
In addition to these plans for tree planting, 2009 is
set to be a busy year for access improvements with greater attention
being paid to making the Reserve more visitor friendly. Keep reading the
web report for more details! |
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