It rained! Seriously. It did. Honest!
It was therefore a bit muddy as we removed another few hundred meters of wire and posts from the Castle end of The Cluster. This fencing was erected some years ago to keep stock out of the alder woodland but floods and erosion had severely damaged it to the point that some it was now buried under flood debris.
It is surprising how much difference removing a fence makes to the feel of a place. We saw that last weekend too with our group of volunteers.
The wire netting we remove will be reused elsewhere to protect natural regeneration/planting spots from errant sheep and the posts will either be reused if good enough or cut and used for fuel.
There is still a few hundred meters to remove, including a rather awkward stretch which is partly underwater. That should be fun!
We’re also making progress with our planting scheme up the hillside with access now enabled through some of the landslips that occurred three years ago tomorrow. I will post some pictures of what exactly happened three years ago tomorrow if I get chance.
All in all a positive few days on The Cluster, including a few new records posted on iNaturalist.
Martin WW
PS. I was just getting some pix sorted for tomorrows post on the flooding three years ago and found some (post said flood) of the fence we removed. So I thought I’d treat you to them…
The Heggs-Castle Renaturing Project 
I’m sure the ground and vegetation will have loved the rain. A good job done removing the fencing.
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