The Wrekin - Mammal Boxes

Had to cancel my Friday excursion with the Wrekin Forest volunteers this week due to a 3-day decorating programme which stretched to 6! Saturday’s planned day out with Mike Williams and crew at Stiperstones also fell foul of the paint brush. My Apley Castle blog post from the previous week was well under way but not completed so it was fortuitous that Nigel emailed his article for posting to the blog. Apley Castle article to follow shortly, but in the meantime over to Nigel Cane-Honeysett for his first-ever posting on the group’s blog: Friday’s foray on The Wrekin …
  
Small mammal nesting boxes – Wrekin Forest said the programme. Brian, Jim, Liz and I (Nigel) met up at the Telford pickup point and duly clambered aboard the battle bus containing Pete, Jamie and Alistair along with two wheelbarrows (more of them later) and a lot of little boxes - and they all looked just the same. (There’s a pink one and a blue one and a green one etc). Actually they were all wood coloured but this blog is renowned for going off on one so I thought I’d keep the tradition up.

Arriving at Forest Glen we met Penny, Mike, Keith, Linda, Allison and Kevin’s car, but where was Kevin (Lilleshall, Apley Castle ?). Penny volunteered to look for him but settled for summoning him using only the power of her mind .

Once together we embarked on a litter pick around the car park and collected 16 black sacks of rubbish here guarded by Alistair and Jamie.

Prize litter pick of the day went to Penny who found the golf bag (minus clubs) closely followed by Alistair who found a rusty shovel which was stored on the bus - you never know when it might come in useful. Some debate arose during the litter pick around controlling the problem – my view (not necessarily that of the management) is that a “litter tax” should be levied on any company whose name featured in any of the sacks so look out C*db*rys (or do I mean Kr*ft), W*lkers and D*r*x (get your Mum or Dad to explain that last one).

Litter picking and griping done we bussed or legged it to Burnt Cottage Coppice (I think) where we unloaded twenty mammal des res and set off up the path leaping aside to avoid Tom in a Landrover.

Pete explained the task with Liz providing illustrations of a dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius) from her Collins Complete British Wildlife and we plunged into the undergrowth in determined style. In order to keep it simple Pete suggested that we split into two and started halfway with each team going in a different direction and counting up from eleven or down from ten depending on ..... well we knew what he meant – honest!

We took it in turns to tie boxes onto trees etc with the ubiquitous blue string (no soup for the clangers again!)


whilst others determined what the canopy coverage was (on a scale of A to D) and how dense the undergrowth/shrubbery was (on a scale of 1 to 5). Allison acted as Estate agent



recording this and other suitable comments (close to main track, south facing etc.) Penny, using her nautical knowledge explained how we could get knotted (or knotting perhaps).

Some debate arose whether the aspect should refer to the position of the box on the tree or whether it should be whichever way the residence faced (made more difficult as the entrance was in the back) – this kept us amused for well....minutes!

Choice dwellings were half timbered…



Or thatched…



Kevin then provided gridrefs for all boxes, in between grumbles that the GPS wasn’t really accurate enough with all the interference from trees (quite how they were interfering with him I don’t know) and Jim provided bearings from one box to the next for later survey work.

Having completed twenty boxes we lunched which was when the wheelbarrows really came into their own.


Just a couple of barrow boys! (Ed.)

Penny meanwhile propped up a tree to Liz’s bemusement.



We discussed the Silkin Way walk planned for 19^th February and agreed to start from Princess Royal Hospital around 10 ish and finish as close to the Woodbridge Inn as possible around whateverish. Please let Pete know if you are coming.

After lunch we reloaded the barrows with boxes and followed a different path to erect them. This time we started at the beginning and finished at the end – much to our confusion !

The terrain was steep – so much so that I thought we must be putting up boxes for a new species Muscardinus monticulum (alright so I made that up!).

Kevin tried out Penny’s tree propping technique



While Mike and Liz referred to the Ikea instructions for erecting a new dormouse domicile.



We finished earlier than usual and made our way back home.

The whole day moved me to poetry:-

Your house ?
Dormouse !

a bit long perhaps.

Article by Nigel Cane-Honeysett