Sunday 28th January

It’s been a while since I posted any photos of mosses. Rather amiss of me, as Walton Common is an excellent site to see and study them. Today was a field meeting of the Bristol Naturalists Society, specifically to look at the Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) on the Common. It also attracted a lot of people – about 20! Led by local expert David Hawkins, with help from some other very knowledgeable people, we were shown a wide range of species likely to be encountered on calcareous grassland. Very inspiring stuff!

A variety of mosses – including a feather-moss

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Sunday 28th January

Although updates have been few and far between recently, plenty of work has been going on. Most of the reserve maintenance work is carried out during the winter months, leaving the reserve to the wildlife from about March onwards. In particular, we have been preparing the grassland for the our wild flowers. Although in previous years this has been quite a chore, we have had a herd of Dexters to help us and their relentless browsing is making life so much easier. Our (the volunteer team) involvement has concentrated on keeping some of the spreading scrub in check and trying to limit the spread of Bracken.

Winter works

This particular section has been manually cut, as it is outside the range of the grazing Dexters (and rather steep). Most of our involvement hasn’t been anything like as stark as this particular section. We have, generally, been maintaining a more mixed mosaic of grass and scrub – ideal for both invertebrates and wild flowers. Our work for this winter is almost done …… and I’m really looking forward to the first violets, butterflies etc.

Walton-in-Gordano from the Common

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