DEAN GREEN TEAM
Wildlife Conservation Group in the
Forest of Dean
Gloucestershire
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19 January 2010
Clearwell Meend
Grid Ref SO581087
The weather was a respite from the snowy conditions of late, although foggy to begin with, as the next day, the snow showers returned!. Some of the group helped to clear the ponds from the regrowth since our last visit nearly two years ago while a few of us went down to the limestone escarpment to clear the hawthorn, gorse and birch.
Clearwell Meend is 42 acres of bracken, gorse, heather,scrub/woodland,acid grassland,calcareous grassland, marsh and ponds. It lies mostly over drybrook sandstone and whitehead limestone on the western part. There are 89 species of plants including nationally scarce and locally important autumn gentian and lousewort. Other notable plants are harebells,autumn lady's- tresses,carline thistle,salad burnett. There are glow-worms on this site and until recently small pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies.
At the beginning of the day it was really foggy and the frozen pond had not yet thawed after the last two weeks of very wintry weather.
There was a degree of re-growth around the pond which did not take long to tidy up