Butterfly Conservation volunteer day

This morning we went to help at a volunteer day for the Butterfly Conservation Rother Woods Project. The location was Beckley Woods, about 7 miles out from Rye, and the task was coppicing trees to widen a ride, in order to create a better habitat for butterflies (and incidentally other insects and birds too).

There's a short piece about it on the Butterfly Conservation sightings page.

Here's a few pictures:
It was strange going back to using a bow saw - no chainsaws allowed on volunteer days, as it's a bit noisy for the people not using them! We'll certainly appreciate our saws when we get to the woods tomorrow!

As well as getting a bit of conservation work done we also got to meet lots of people, including John, a retired forester who lives near our wood - we're hoping he'll be able to visit us this week to see the work we're currently doing, and give us some tips from his years of experience!

When we got home we found that our cockatiels had deserted their expensive cage with all its ropes and toys to go and sit in a branch we brought back from the wood...
I suspect the millet hanging in it was an attraction though...

Mike