Putting up bird boxes and bashing rhody and birch at Alderley Edge on Sunday 26th October 2025

We got an extra hour in bed this morning because it was clock change day.  Is this why we got ten people meeting up at Alderley Edge on a damp Sunday?

The rain was intermittent all day.  It was one of those days when if you’d been inside you would have thought the weather was horrible, but it wasn’t so bad being out.  We managed to find a dryish spot for lunch.

 

We had a variety of tasks to do in the same area, so plenty of choice.  Two pairs went off putting up bird boxes that had been made by local school children in the summer.

Two others went off to hunt down and destroy any rhody they could find in “Rhody wood”.  Others went off in search of birch to pull up with tree poppers or by hand.

Any oak saplings they found were carefully dug up to preserve the roots and transplanted to the new tree nursery.

 

It has been a fabulous year for fungi - and since it’s Halloween I have included a disembodied hand for scale ;-)

We had a good day, removing unwanted vegetation - to keep the habitat as heathland.  Hopefully some birds will find the nest boxes in the spring.

Jenny