Category Archives: Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers

CNCV: Wybunbury Moss in March

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Today I attended my first task of the year with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers. With many other things happening in my life at the moment, it’s been difficult to fit in my usual fortnightly volunteering with the group but today I managed to at least attend for half a day.

After having to do some work this morning, yearning to be outside on what looked like a lovely day, I rushed across to Wybunbury Moss at lunchtime to join in the work. After being there two weeks ago, there was brash to cut and burn while others coppiced woodland on another part of the site.

The view from my desk wasn’t deceiving, it was an almost springlike day. There was as much blue sky as cloud and the sun’s warmth could be felt quite strongly but a keen chilly wind kept the feeling of late winter in the air rather than early spring. As we finished the task in mid-afternoon, a few light showers came along to dampen our enthusiasm. However, just being outside with some lovely sunshine lifted my spirits and blue away the morning work-cobwebs perfectly.

I’ve really missed being with the group over the last few months and hopefully I’ll find a few more gaps to attend over the course of the spring.

CNCV: Wybunbury Moss

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Our first fire of the autumn!!! Today I was out with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers again and in one of our usual haunts – Wybunbury Moss. We were working for Natural England cutting tree saplings and burning the brash.

Despite not having a fire since early spring, I managed to get today’s going first time and soon it was blazing away fed with brash, thick and thin, for over four hours. As usual, there were plenty of signs of wildlife around with a strangely coloured frog the highlight of the day plus bands of winter thrushes passing through.

We rounded the day off with some chestnuts roasted on the fire – perfect!!!

CNCV: Tegg’s Nose

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I was out for another of the (usually) fortnightly tasks with Crewe and Nantwich Conservation Volunteers. It was our first outing for a month and we went a little further than usual this time; to Tegg’s Nose County Park, working for Cheshire East Council Rangers. We were tasked by Ranger Martin to clear gorse in one of the fields. First we cleared a section to widen an approach to a gateway, where the cattle usually get a bit spooked by the narrowness of the path. We then cleared a patch encroaching on the field, giving more space for some of the rare species of plant that grow on the hillside meadows.

It started off as a lovely morning but after lunch we could see the cloud coming in across the Cheshire Plain and the rain started coming down just as we finished. It was that fine rain that gets you really soaked and as Tegg’s Nose is high up on the top of the hill, the rain turned into low cloud, dropping the visibility down quite significantly.

The County Park is a lovely place, just on the edge of the Peak District National Park and good starting point for a number of good walks into the hills and valleys. It has great view into the park but also across the flat Cheshire Plain, with Jodrell Bank standing out well above green pastureland.

Next time we’re out, it will be to Wybunbury Moss, and hopefully a first fire of the autumn – sausages at the ready!

CNCV: Oakmere

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I spent today with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers working on some private land at Oakmere. We’ve been going there for three or four years now and have helped to restore a schwingmoor, or quaking bog. Now that we’ve cleared the bog of the larger birch saplings, our tasks are spent ensuring birch doesn’t recolonise and take over again. This is one location were we really can see the difference our efforts make.

The location is also lovely, a lakeside woodland approached through meadows with the bog in the middle. The woodland is full of birdlife and we had great views of young green woodpeckers and listened to the chorus of birds throughout the day.

We finished at about 15:00 after spending the day in the hot sun, so I popped into the nearby farm shop for some ice cream – yum!

A proper spring day – at last!!!

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I’ve spent today on a task with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers (CNCV) at a forest school near Barthomley. We spent a few hours coppicing, dead-hedging, making stakes and clearing nettles. The stand out for the day really was the weather, however, a really lovely spring day. The sun came out, giving real warmth, clouds were lighter and fluffier than they have been for a long time, and the birds were in full song. The plants were also really starting to show spring growth with some trees breaking into leaf and the wild garlic and bluebells growing on the woodland floor.

The afternoon was so nice, I actually sat in my deckchair in the back garden when I got home – if only my cold had gone away, it would have been a perfect day!

Great early spring day

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I was up early today and out of the house an hour after dawn to do the first of four breeding bird surveys at Cheshire Wildlife Trust’s Bagmere reserve. I’ve been doing the surveys at the site for a few years now and it’s always nice to get started with them – one of the first tasks in my spring and summer of conservation volunteering.

The morning was chilly at first but the temperatures started to rise quickly and with a watery sun adding to the relative warmth, spring appeared to have sprung as I made my way into the reserve. The spring was also evident in the birds, even before I started the survey. There were some displaying lapwings looping over a nearby stubble field and there were plenty of birds singing the dawn chorus in the surrounding woods.

Into the reserve and there were a good number of birds to record with many of the usual species flitting or flying around the meadows, woods and fen. Of particular interest were a couple of water rail, a nice mixed flock of siskins and redpolls, some singing reed buntings and a few snipe flushed from the wet ground.

The scene was set at Bagmere for the spring migrants to arrive, making the intensity of the dawn chorus even greater and bringing even more vibrancy to the reserve.

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After the survey, I went to volunteer with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers at Wybunbury Moss and spent the morning and early afternoon clearing and burning trees from the woodland edge. This work will help other migrant birds by providing better breeding conditions in the thick cover than will grow in the space left behind.

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Not finished for the day, I then went out on my bike for 20 miles, peddling around the Cheshire countryside on the last light of what felt like the first proper weekend of spring – it can only get better from here (hopefully!).

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Could it be spring?

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In many ways hopefully not…but today was a little glimpse through the window of the recent gloomy conditions into what spring could be.

I was out with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers today working on a task at Wybunbury Moss. We spent the day clearing scrub from one of the large fields around the outside of the Moss, helping to keep the meadow wet, and then burning the resulting brash. The wind was keen at times but the clouds broke to reveal both the sun and lovely blue skies.

I usually forget but today I remembered to take along some hotdogs for cooking on the fire – one of my favourite things to do!

Afterwards I went out for a pedal on my bike taking advantage of the lighter evening due to the clear skies and the slowly drawing out sunset time.

It’s not spring yet but today it felt very close – certainly much closer than it has recently.

CNCV: Dairy House Farm

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Yesterday I was out with Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers on a task at a new location for the group. We spent the day at Dairy House Farm, near Winsford; a farm under the higher level stewardship scheme, which as well as breeding livestock also has a farm school.


We spent the day clearing the regrowth of an old hedge line. It had orginally been removed to reduce cover for predators which had been taking the chicks of declining numbers of waders breeding in the wet meadows.

A nice bit of wheelbarrowing

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After doing some work this morning, I turned up late for today’s Crewe & Nantwich Conservation Volunteers’ task at Sound Common. Working for Cheshire East Council, we spent the day removing birch saplings and clearing brambles. Some of us also moved the soil left over from the machines which had scraped off the surface of the heathland, revealing bare earth on which the heather can regenerate – I love a bit of wheelbarrowing!