Sanctuary Visits

 

As it’s beginning to look more like spring, we’re back to doing regular sanctuary visits. The first of these was a return to Lower Moss Wood in Knutsford. The sanctuary isn’t open to the public, so it’s always really nice to get to spend time in the beautiful woodland, wildlife hospital and peat land that make it up.

A group of seven MAAers  headed over. Ray gave us a tour of the site so that we could see how building was progressing, and set us our tasks for the day. Last time we were there, we demolished old enclosures and painted all the woodwork on the site. This time, there were three main jobs to be done.

Team A: “The Bog Dwellers”, took the task of digging out peat that has begun to choke one of the lakes on the site. The two girls spent their day balancing on boards at the edge of the bog, and cutting, digging and pulling huge wads of peat from the edge. By the end of the day, they were soaked, muddy, grinning, and had made a visible dent in the edge of the lake.

Team B:  Team B consisted of MAA’s resident building expert. She was set the task of replacing and painting fencing around some of the bog area to make it safer for new school groups to visit. She single handily removed old posts, pounded in the new ones with a very heavy stake driver, and built and repainted the new fencing.

Team C: The four members of Team C (and this author’s team: go team logs!) were charged with the task of clearing dead trees from an area of woodland, sawing the logs and creating new wood-pile habitats for invertebrates.  We began by clearing those trees and branches from the woodland floor that were obviously dead, and chopped them into logs using handsaws. These were then used to create around 30 new insect habitats around the woods. As we became better at identifying trees that were standing, but dead, we were able to use the hand saws to fell them, to create new space in the woodland and make paths safer for school visitors.

Once we’d packed up, we went to meet the hospitals resident foxes, owls, crow, bats, and two particularly charming and hungry pigs. Next time we’ve promised them some apples.

It was a fantastic day. It was great to work outside with the promise of spring in the air, and when it rained towards the end of the day, we were warm enough to be glad of it. We munched sandwiches, drank coffee, fell into bogs, smacked ourselves with hammers, got hands full of brambles and faces whacked with branches, and generally had a laugh while doing something really rewarding.

 

Sanctuary visits are a way of doing something that effects change on a really immediate basis and gets us all outside.  There’s no need for any real brawn or expertise; as long as you’re happy to work hard, get covered in mud, and crash around woodland in a slightly confused but posi manor, then join us on the next one!

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