Case Study: Badgers and breeding birds

Warwickshire

A badger sett had been identified underneath an overhead electrical power in an area of woodland that was scheduled to be cleared to achieve safe clearances from the power lines.

The site was due to be cleared by machinery for efficiency and to avoid manual handling of lots of hawthorn and blackthorn that was present. Following a discussions and a briefing with the arb team, mechanical working was able to proceed on much of the site but to avoid any damage to the badger sett, a suitable sized buffer zone was set up for manual cutting only. During the initial site survey, a number of bird nests were also identified with eggs present, and these had exclusion zones applied until the young birds had fledged the nests and the nests were no longer in use, at which point work in these areas was allowed to re-commence.

A badger sett was present underneath the power lines in an area that required vegetation clearance to maintain a safe distance from the electrical conductors. Work was still able to be completed but required a few simple control measures in place.

The site was mulched due to the large amounts of hawthorn and blackthorn that was present. A buffer zone was implemented and marked out around the badger sett to prevent any damage to the sett by the heavy machinery. Hand cutting was then able to proceed in the buffer zone and care was taken not to block any sett entrances with the arisings that were cut and stacked well back from the sett.

A bird nest was identified in the base of hazel coppice that had an exclusion zone implemented to prevent any damage or destruction from occurring during work. This nest would have otherwise been destroyed if no walkover survey had been commissioned by our client.

One of the badger sett entrances was inside the hollow stem of a willow pollard underneath the overhead power line. This tree was re-pollardard with hand tools and electric chainsaws to prevent any disturbance to the badgers or damage to the badger sett.