A Bridge Too Far?

The second work party for June should have been Wed of last week. That was in the middle of the heat wave so we postponed it and held it yesterday the 1st July.

During the last few weeks the vegetation in Filnore has grown a lot and is beginning to close off some of the paths so our task yesterday was to open up the paths either side of the bridge near post 5 in the far corner of the woodland.

This is the path that coming from the meadow at the top of the pylon field to the bridge. You can see how narrow the space is.

There were only three of us - Eric, Peter and me so we got on with the clearing work.

We made a start by scything the edges

Then cut down the remaining grass and brambles to make the path wider.

Leaving a path down the steps giving good access to the bridge.

Over the bridge then to deal with the path up to post 6. This path is also getting choked with vegetation and would soon become impassable if we leave it as it is.

We set up a little base to work from, then had a go at the edges like we did on the other side of the bridge.

We cut down a considerable amount of material ...

... but the resulting clear wide path made the effort worthwhile.

On the way to the bridge paths we walked up the pylon field and through the meadow. There were lots of butterflies flying around. This is a good time to see them as the 'resident' ones like the Marbled White, the Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper and Ringlet are currently flying. We also saw some visiting ones like the Red Admiral and Painted Lady. Here are photos of some of them.

Marbled White (Melanargia galathea)

Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

We had a good day out in the fine weather and achieved what we set out to do with only three volunteers. We were all quite tired by the end but were happy with the work we did.