October saw the start of gorse coppicing season on the salt marsh edge so three of the four work parties this month were taken up by this activity. The gorse is cut as low to the ground as possible, and we burn or chip what is removed. The fire is always great for morale on the cold and wet days one can expect at this time of year (though not this year yet!) but chipping releases less CO₂ into the atmosphere and the chippings…

September saw us welcome another three new volunteers to Campfield, taking our tally to six since our recruitment drive started!

The first work party of the month saw a group of us make our way up onto the bog to remove small birch trees (pictured) that are trying to spread out from the adjacent woodland and dry the bog out through the process of succession. Removing the birch halts this process and ensures that the bog…

August saw us welcome three fantastic new volunteers to the team, which has been a really positive development, not least because the more volunteers that attend each week, the more we can achieve! Simply put, our volunteers make a huge difference.

The first work party of August saw a group of us take in the temporary electric fence from around one of the salt marsh pools. This fence is put up in April to keep the grazing…

The Campfield meet and greet volunteers generally man the Visitors Centre in pairs on Saturdays, Sundays, and Bank Holidays, 10 am to 4 pm, and if you like meeting people, chatting to them about all sorts of things, and generally enjoy being out and about then it’s a brilliant way to spend the day, especially when you have the wonderful surroundings of Campfield Reserve. 

Obviously, things became tricky in March…

The first two work parties of July saw us ragwort pulling in the wet grassland fields prior to them being cut for hay. Ragwort is poisonous to livestock, so it is important that it does not end up in the hay that provides food for our graziers’ cows during the winter months. Elsewhere on the reserve, however, it is of value to invertebrates so is left. The team managed to remove ragwort from 75% of the fields – many a…

We've had some special help from Cora and her mum this week who offered to volunteer on the reserve for a couple of days! Cora wrote this blog to tell everyone about her time here."

"I was really excited when my mummy told me that I was going to be a volunteer at Camfield Marsh. When I arrived, I went to find the Warden/Aunty Mhairi was working in her tractor on the massive field cutting the grass because it…

Hi all. I wrote about the first two volunteer sessions of June in my previous blog post (Campfield Marsh Volunteer Work Party Update (March-June '23) - Campfield Marsh - Campfield Marsh - The RSPB Community), during which we carried out the second of two marsh fritillary surveys and the final snipe survey.

The third session in June saw a group of us walk the perimeter of the electric fence and cut or pull any vegetation…