Spring Time Cometh.

Well at last the weather has changed and it's getting a little warmer and the countryside is slowly drying out. This winter has seen the longest wettest period in over one hundred years or more, it started to rain just before Christmas and with only an odd day here and there we had persistent rainfall until early March. The wet weather has caused many problems for people living and working in the countryside, many farmers will face bankruptcy as a result due to the floods. Many thousands of acres of arable land has been under water for many weeks seed that was sowed last Autumn has been under water for more than three weeks and has died off due to the lack of oxygen and the sun.

My team of stalkers have struggled to get out to carry out our Deer management duties, the rain has kept the deer under cover for most of the time only venturing out for food or to dry out when there has been some sunshine. It has been very difficult but we have managed to reach the cull figures required by our clients in all of the woodland we cover. This is an essential practise that we have to carry out and it is in the interest of the deer as well in that we select carefully the animals that need tone culled after spending many hours observing them.  The selected deer will be a mix of all ages and will include a percentage that has been worked out of the numbers of males and females that are to be culled as well as any infirm or injured deer we come across.

Now that the weather is on the change things will start to grow in the areas that have survived the onslaught of the winds and rain we have suffered with through the winter months. One such example of this is these two fields of oil seed rape in the Winshill area of Burton, I first spotted them in the first week of this month and could not believe my eyes, they were both in full bloom from hedgerow to hedgerow, a lovely and welcoming sight to see.

Oil Seed Rape.

Oil Seed Rape.

The photos I took are not the best but at least they give you an idea of what they looked like. A few days later I was traveling down south through several counties and whilst doing so I was looking for more fields of this crop and I never saw any wherever I looked, these two local fields have done very well. I am sorry for leaving it so long since my last blog but I have been very busy with other things that I will tell you about next time.