Things are getting exciting with my grazing project. Firstly our PPE arrived, I look particularly dashing in fluorescent orange. Last week I visited the quarry and spent some time looking at the grassland and pavement to decide where the grazing exclosure plots should be located and the best way to mark them to ensure they can be relocated. This mostly involved wandering round the pavement and grassland to select representative areas whilst enjoying the sunshine, definitely a highlight of my job. Even with all the lovely sunshine we have been having it is still a little early to survey the vegetation though. The blue moor grass, a species that is very common in the Yorkshire Dales but has a very limited distribution nationally is just coming into flower. It gets its name from the bluish tint to the grass flowers. Blue moor grass is the dominant species in the grasslands and pavements around the quarry. Other species I observed in the pavement included maidenhair fern, hard shield fern, hawthorn and coltsfoot.

Next month we will be putting the plots in and conducting the initial surveys. The sheep will also arrive on site which will be especially exciting. Over the last few years the site hasn’t been grazed very much so bringing sheep back will hopefully improve the condition of the grassland. It also marks the real start of the experiment.

Communicating the results of the experiment and using it to provide information to people making decisions about how limestone pavements and grasslands are managed is a really important part of this process. I started that process this month by presenting at the Natural England Yorkshire region conference and later in the month I will present at the Limestone Pavement Partnership conference. I know from discussions with practitioners all over the country that there is a desperate need for information on the most appropriate grazing regimes for limestone pavements and the habitats that surround them.

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  A visit to Horton Quarry

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  Quarry Life

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