New-Year reflection; What has happened since our last post?
Dam building has begun again after a well-deserved Christmas break and as we move into the last 3 months of our project it is good to reflect on the changes we have made so far…
We said goodbye to 2021 on a positive note with the running total of dams built by our volunteers reaching 161 and 22 contractor dams, many of the dams are already working beautifully!
(Just two examples of dam sites that are now in use - Images taken by staff)
During late November and December, we continued our regular weekly work parties on Tuesdays and Saturdays with students from the Kent Uni Conservation society returning for their monthly work party; as the winter rain began, getting wet and muddy became an obligation to the task!
(Volunteers looking good in waders! - Image taken by volunteer)
Partnerships
Modern conservationists have realised the importance and necessity of collaboration between organisations and stakeholders to reach the main aim; to build climate change resilience, to support biodiversity and to ensure conservation projects are successful. The project has been forming partnerships throughout the project and November/December tasks were a good example of this.
In collaboration with Natural England’s Seasonal visitor warden, Lizzie Talbot, Milo Sumner visited Mighty Oaks class at Brook community primary school on the 2nd December to support the children to discover how individuals and communities help woodlands. The class were working towards the John Muir ‘Discover’ award and to achieve this the children had to complete a set of challenges.
(Class-based session- Images taken by staff)
On the 10th December the children were able to come and put theory into practice. We began the session with a tool safety talk and then teams were created; 1 team cleared a path using loppers and another team went to choose appropriate dam sites. 3 dam building groups were formed, and the children successfully built 4 working dams by the end of the session. It was lovely to listen and to observe the progress the class made over two days, it was clear from conversations between staff and individuals how much knowledge they had taken in. Another enjoyable element spotted was the apprehension seen in the class at the beginning of the day to how relaxed and muddy they were by the end- a very positive experience for all!
(Pictures of the class on the practical session)
(Video of dams filmed two weeks later)
The Tuesday dam builders group joined the KWT West Blean work party for two sessions during December. The aim of this was to engage the volunteers of the KWT with the ‘Re-wetting the Blean,’ project and to introduce the two teams. We hope that our project volunteers newfound dam-building skills will be integrated into both KWT and RSPB volunteer teams going forward! It was delightful to see the different variety of dam styles engineered. We look forward to the working with Kent Wildlife Trust during the remainder of the project.
(KWT dam example - photos taken by staff)
Christmas celebrations
RSPB Blean volunteer celebrated Christmas with a bonfire, jacket potatoes, mince pies and cakes. It was a great opportunity for the dam builders to join in and introduce themselves so that they may continue to help RSPB Blean when the project comes to an end.