Pond Clearance Part 2

Yesterday we continued the work we started a couple of weeks ago removing the vegetation from ponds on the wetland. Matt and Laura, in waders went into the middle of the ponds clearing what couldn’t be reached with rakes.

The other volunteers worked at the pond fringes raking out the reeds and removed the piles of vegetation from the last time we worked in the ponds. Everything that was removed from the ponds yesterday has been piled at the banksides where it will stay for a few days to allow any creatures that got caught up in it to find their way back to the ponds. We now have two ponds with significant amounts of open water to encourage their use by wetland birds.

After a lunch of treats baked by Anne (including an amazing date and walnut cake) we changed tack a little and went down to the lake hide where we cleared the views to the bird feeders. This involved the felling of a willow, pruning a massive Buddleia and the removal of a number of assorted ‘spikey things’. The view is now uninterrupted from hide to feeders so we hope to see you down there with your binoculars in hand sometime soon.

It was a good day’s work and a lot was achieved improving two areas of the reserve so our sincerest thanks to everyone involved.

This morning we had our weekly moth count and even though it is getting quite late on in the year due to reasonable conditions we had 22 moths across 9 species including Brimstone Moth (pictured below), Brown Spot Pinion and Pink-barred Sallow.