Category: Countryside

  • Natural Resources Policy

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | January 23, 2017

    Last week Jo and I attended the Natural Resources Policy Consultation Engagement Event in Cardiff. The title is certainly a mouthful and it was with some trepidation that we traveled to the capital, fearing perhaps some jargon laden attempt at schmoozing the environmental ‘stakeholders’. We could not have been more wrong, yes, of course there was a…

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  • Progress Down at t’Mill

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | January 18, 2017

    We have been making great progress down at Ricketts Mill. Steve has been pulling back the banks of the former trout lake to create shallow areas and we have been planting some of these with reeds. Reed planting is on hold for a while because of avian flu. We are planting up the exposed earth…

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  • Establishing Wetlands

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | December 16, 2016

    We have been very busy down at Ricketts Mill. The plan is to turn the old trout farm into a focal point for the Trust’s activities where students and land managers can come to get first-hand experience of management techniques. The existing lake was built for trout fishing and drops sheer at the banks to…

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  • Looking Back

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | December 12, 2016

    The summer seems so far away now. Daylight seems so brief and the mist lingers all day. However, my day was brightened immensely when a DVD containing lots of wonderful photographs from our friend David Woodfall arrived. He spent many happy hours in the summer photographing the top pond beavers and their kits. Seeing all…

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  • Frosty Days

    By The Bevis Trust In , | December 1, 2016

    It’s been a busy time with the beavers. We worked flat out to get the new beaver fence ready at the new enclosure, trapped a family of five and got them in, only to find that one of the adults found a weak place in the new fence and escaped. To make matters worse, three…

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  • Momentous News!

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | November 24, 2016

    It has just been announced that the beaver is now recognised as a native species in Scotland! The implications for the rest of the UK have yet to be seen but this can only be a positive step for the Welsh and English beaver reintroduction projects. Read more about it here

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  • Beavering Away

    By The Bevis Trust In , | November 8, 2016

    October has been dry and we have had a lovely Indian summer. Yesterday there were still dragonflies on the ponds. We have been very busy on the farm making the most of it while it lasts. Pete, James and Linda finished the fiddly bits of fencing down at Skinny Dipping Pond that has now become…

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  • Owl Update

    By The Bevis Trust In , | October 3, 2016

    Like a child leaving home our visiting barn owl has moved on with mixed feelings from the staff. His recovery was very rapid thanks to the expert care of our aviculturalists and as we had a spell of settled weather looming we thought that getting him back out to his home territory was the best…

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  • Slurry Pits

    By The Bevis Trust In , | October 2, 2016

    A neighbour delivered a Barn Owl here on Thursday. He had found it floundering in his slurry pit. It was exhausted and caked in slurry. We tube fed it with finely ground up mouse that we give the baby falcons, and with electrolytes to provide fluids. Then we left it in a dark warm box…

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  • The End of Summer

    By The Bevis Trust In , , | September 18, 2016

    We are still at the farm in Northumberland where we are having a lovely Indian summer, with morning mist in the valleys burning off to reveal bright sunlit landscapes. We have been working with the falcons, flying them every day at robotic prey birds and learning more and more about their development and flying skills…

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