Today Peter Gurney and his team from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust came down to Raw Nook NR to finish off cutting and raking the meadow and distributing Yellow Rattle seeds.
Our group joined in with the first job been to rake off any thatch in pocketed areas within the meadow and then spread Yellow Rattle seeds into those areas.
Whilst the Yellow Rattle is now established in the meadow there are certain areas that are devoid of the species, and Yellow Rattle is excellent for keeping rank grasses at bay, which in turn helps wildflowers to grow.
The weather early on was very mild with a hint of light rain which wasn’t a problem.
When Peter had cut swaths of meadow grasses down, we raked it up and put it out of harms way so it could rot down.
The work was going really well and by 12.00 it was time of lunch.
We had just got started after lunch when I felt some rather large rain drops!
Then the heavens opened and for about 20 minutes it bounced down and we had to take shelter…but we still got soaked. However, thankfully we had all but finished so we packed up the tools and walked to the van.
And yes….Your right the sun then came out, so we went back to the meadow and finished off the last bits of raking.
So we were all wet and tired but we felt really good that not only had we all done a great job but also the meadow and our wildlife will benefit from our enjoyable hard work.
