With the first storms of the Autumn some trees fell right on the viewing area of the waterfall at Pwll y Wrach. Luckily, our reserves Manager Duncan was on hand to clear the trees immediately. By doing this we were able to improve the accessibility to this beautiful reserve on the outskirts of the popular town, Talgarth. However, more work will be required if we are to keep the main routes open, especially over winter with increased risk of adverse weather.

On this reserve we have utilised a system of 'tree tagging' - this is used to monitor and maintain trees near paths and roads.  This is particularly used for ash trees and a small tag is attached to each tree. These numbered tags allow us to monitor tree health over time, which is of particular importance with the current impact of ash dieback. This is a disease which caused by a fungus and results in leaf loss and crown dieback in infected trees. 

Next, Vicarage Meadows barn, which is often used by barn owls, was restored thanks to funding from National Heritage Lottery Fund. We contracted the work to R B Jones Environmental who used traditional materials obtained from Ty Mawr Lime in Brecon in order to restore the barn to it's former beauty.

Barn Owl young can need a couple of weeks after they are fledged to be sufficiently independent, so Brecknock country bird recorder, Mr Andrew King, very kindly assisted by checking activity in the Barn in the weeks running up to the project commencing. He provided vital information on when work could begin so as to impact the Barn Owls as little as possible.