Button Oak Meadow: a New Trust Reserve

I'm hijacking the volunteer blog (yet again!) to tell you about Button Oak Meadow, one of our newest reserves. I visited the reserve this week to plan its management with my counterpart from Shropshire Wildlife Trust. Volunteers will have the chance to view this site in April as there are a few jobs to be done before the growing and nesting season gets under way like clearing the barns gutters, fixing windows to make sure swallows can get in to nest but keeping rain out, and clearing fallen boughs from the stock fence. 

Thankfully it was a bright sunny day and the site was relatively DRY!  Despite the dry weather I saw a kingfisher on the smallest of water filled ditches by the reserve. Probably keeping away from the bigger rivers which are dramatically in flood . The site has a barn which will be useful for volunteers to shelter in if it rains hard. In the summer I'm hoping volunteers will help record wildlife so we can have a complete picture of this reserve. There is a lot of botanical interest and the underlying geology and soil has resulted in a diverse plant community – there are areas of acid grassland, neutral grassland and wet flushes all very close to one another with transitions between each. As with many meadow reserves, access is restricted, so volunteering provides one of the best ways of seeing a site.

Andy, Northern Reserves Officer