02 Feb Dry Stone Walling at RSPB Loch Lomond
Dry Stone Walling Volunteer Tasks
Back in December a group of hardy volunteers braved the pouring rain to start rebuilding a section of dry stone wall on the RSPB Loch Lomond Nature Reserve. Yesterday we went back to finish what we started.
The Nature Reserve on the shores of Loch Lomond is one of the newest for the RSPB, which means they are still in the early stages of development. As part of these developments a circular path is currently being built at the site and the team hope that this will open in spring 2017. The new path meant breaking through part of a dry stone wall or drystane dyke as it is known in these parts. We were happy to spend the winter volunteer task re-building it into a nice feature along the trail.
Helped by expert dry stone waller Gordon Kydd, we set about getting the base stones and the cheek end (end of the wall) in place. The weather was pretty horrible and the volunteers did a great job to get stones in place despite them being coated in slippy mud. By the end of the day in December we had made a good start on both sides of the path, but there was more to be done to join the new wall to what had been left standing.
Yesterday the same group of volunteers returned to finish off the wall. Luckily the weather was much kinder to us and we even saw the sun at one point. The wall is on quite a steep slope, which made it quite a technical task for getting the new wall to join on to the old part. It definitely was one for jigsaw fans.
The hard work really paid off, the final result looks great and is rock solid. Hopefully it will be standing for many years to come, creating a great habitat for wildlife as well as a nice feature on the new RSPB Nature Reserve. See the RSPB website for further information on when and how to visit. www.rspb.org.uk/lochlomond/
Thanks to our wonderful volunteers for giving up two days of their time to help get the wall finished.
Before and after on the second day
If you enjoy working with volunteers and have experience of organising and delivering practical conservation volunteering tasks, check out our current job opportunity for the maternity cover of our Project Activity Officer. Closing date for applications is the 16th February. Find out more about it on our jobs page.
