Ponds and Flowers

Thursday, June 23rd 2016

The Thursday volunteers were in today and were bathed in the warmth and sunshine of a summer day. We managed to complete a variety of tasks. Some of our volunteers set to work taking water samples to test the water quality throughout the reserve. We have a lot of different water bodies on the reserve and at the moment they are all covered in a variety of lovely early summer flowers. The view from our Wetland Hide, which looks over our array of ponds, is particularly nice on a sunny day.

Some of the other volunteers set to work fixing the metal poles that hold up our bird ringing nets, while others fixed the Mink raft down near the entrance. This contains a small clay plate which we check weekly for evidence of mink on the reserve by seeing whether there are footprints in the clay. Mink would predate our water voles, so we are happy that so far we are Mink free.

Flowers are everywhere at present. We are pleased with the enormous amount of Yellow Rattle that is currently on the Moorland. We have planted this in recent years to keep the grass down and allow the wildflowers to grow, and its success can clearly be seen in the photo below.

The honeysuckle is just starting to come out on the reserve.

It has the advantage of having very pretty, sweet smelling flowers, but is also quite attractive in the way it winds its way up the trees.

Thank you to everyone who came to help out today.

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