Author Archives: Martin WW

Many many years ago, before Covid even thought about humans, even before the Arkle beck threw its toys over its banks in spectacular fashion, a couple of folk had an idea to renature their bits of Arkengarthdale. “Let’s do some habitat restoration”… “Lets plant some trees”…Let’s…” (well you get the idea) and so The ClusterContinue reading “And we’re OFF…”

“Night, her sable dome scattered with diamonds” I arose from my Couch of Death just before seven. A good nights’ sleep. The oystercatchers were as noisy as usual come chucking out time but there was little else to trouble my fleeing consciousness.  There was a hungry wind as dawn broke, but by the time IContinue reading “Night the Second”

It’s ten-o-clock on a cool Sunday evening on The Cluster. It’s darkening dusk and I’m sat in front of a fire made from debris washed up in floods on which we cooked our supper (cooked as in reheated tbh, but that doesn’t sound so romantic and since that’s the ‘vibe’ I’m after, it will haveContinue reading “Night the First*”

Apologies (not) for the punny title but it feels sadly apt. A week or so ago I saw an ’orangey’ butterfly flitting around but I lost it before I could positively identify it. I eventually found it (or one similar) in the same area yesterday. I was pleased to get a positive identification and aContinue reading “Going to the Wall?”

Those of you who are subscribed to the blog get an email with any new blog post. However, that is a copy of the original post (mistakes included). Unfortunately the link to the ancient tree inventory was incorrect. The link has been corrected on our blog, but will still be incorrect in your original notificationContinue reading “Trees please…update.”

First up is an update on our wild boar. No further evidence, but I imagine there may be further sightings (or similar) on the first day of April next year! So what has been happening in the mean time? Well not a lot on the ground sadly. The contract for our big planting has beenContinue reading “Trees Please…(old ones especially)”

We have been keeping a close eye on a certain part of The Cluster as we’ve noticed some unusual soil disturbance. We had no idea what was causing this, although we had our suspicions. Yesterday our suspicions were confirmed when we had our first sighting of a wild boar on The Cluster. Yipeee….. Although weContinue reading “Boaring”

This next Saturday sees another of our volunteer days. The forecast is perfect. Lots of spring sunshine. We will be erecting wire ’exclosures’ to prevent bunnies from nibbling emergent growth to see what flowers etc are actually growing on the Cluster. We have had some up for a couple of years and the difference isContinue reading “Super Sunny Saturday?”

(Ours was pretty good…) Thankfully Thursday’s weather was decidedly spring-like. A tad breezy admittedly but very pleasant. I reckoned the four of us would be finished by lunchtime which would hopefully leave plenty of time for a wander afterwards. I had ‘processed’ the willow (chopped up into lengths and put a rather dashing point onContinue reading “How was your day?”