Bog Myrtle & Peat

The past few days have been spent building a new fence to protect the hedge which was planted when we first moved to the new house. I learnt to build fences when I worked as an underkeeper in 2003, but these skills are rarely called for and I always seem to forget the difficulty and exertion required. It’s quite easy to build a weak fence, but the real trick is to conjure up that high-pitched banjo resonance of tight wires and straining timber. I’m actually quite proud of my efforts here, but my hands bear the scars of dealing with barbed wire.

The end product has been fifty metres of new fence which protect the embryonic stirrings of a hedge which has been custom designed to support a range of birds and mammals. Of course I’m hamstrung by having to pay for the materials out of my own pocket, so this project will need to proceed on an opportunity basis. That said, previous hedgerow experiments have been so exciting and successful that I can hardly grudge the expense. I have only planted hawthorn in this hedge so far, but there is scope for quite a variety of species. I look forward to agonising over this in due course, and I have grand plans to lay the whole thing in a few years. That work will hopefully magnify the hedge’s conservation value to provide decent cover for hares and partridges – two species which should be prospering in this wide open world of pasture and bog.

In the meantime, my captive bred grey partridges continue to prosper, and the two escapees keenly scuttle around the yard in the mornings. As they moult into their adult plumage, I need to make preparations for separating them off into breeding pairs at Christmas time.