Alner’s Gorse – one of our four Dorset Butterfly Reserves – has supplied the wood for a project in Somerset. This project was nearly a year in the making, but recently came to fruition when nearly 30 bird, bat and dormouse boxes were erected at Hardington Moor NNR in Somerset this February. The project brought together volunteers and staff of Butterfly conservation, West Coker Scouts and Natural England.

The wood for the boxes was sourced from Alners Gorse, which is part of the newly assigned Blackmoor Vale Commons and Moors SSSI. With the help of many volunteers, part of a conifer plantation was felled to create woodland rides and improve the habitat for the abundance of butterflies and moths found on this site. A Wood-Mizer mobile sawmill was used to turn this timber into a variety of planks and beams.

Natural England Reserve Manager Monique Hustinx collected a load of these planks and made them available to the West Coker Scout Group, who had in the past expressed an interest in Hardington Moor NNR when they helped with the clearing up and burning of brash after a hedge was newly laid. With the help of leaders and parents around 40 Scouts and Cubs spent several evenings building boxes for birds, bats and dormice, using templates provided by Monique. To give them a personal touch many were decorated and signed by their creators.

In early February a hardy group of scouts, parents and scout-leaders joined Monique and voluntary warden Mike Bickerton to brave the freezing weather and mount the boxes in several of the mature hedges surrounding the reserve. Hopefully it will encourage many of them to return to the reserve in spring and summer, to see if new residents have moved in, whilst taking in the abundance of wildflowers and the enchanting Somerset landscape of this NNR.