Well as David is away enjoying himself, it has fallen to the rest of us to write a few blog posts! It has been a week or two since we've had a reserve management update, so keep reading for guest blogger, Site Manager Dave Rogers', update on what our Thursday work party volunteers have been up to recently.
The last two Thursday volunteer sessions have been about completing odd jobs. Last week, we started on repainting the decking around the Visitor Centre. The old paint was starting to peel so Roger B lead a team of three in rubbing down the boards and cleaning off the flaking paint before applying a new undercoat to half the boards. He was so keen that on Friday he was back at work putting the anti-slip top coat down with his progress being checked on by the kingfisher watching from one of the sticks around the pool.
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As well as the decking, we did further cleaning up around the yard and started to fill up the new timber store with all the off cuts and leftovers of wood we have hanging around. They can now be kept nice and dry and ready for use on future projects.
Elsewhere on the reserve, Katherine was out with her brushcutter to cut the vegetation in the bays along the south side of New Fen North. She roped Phil in to help and they opened up five of the views.
This Thursday, I was in charge proceedings. We set Roger B and David M off on getting the rest of the Visitor Centre decking painted, and Rob to tending a fire to burn up the pile of dried ragwort we had previously pulled.
With Nigel and Phil loading and unloading the trailer, we set off to fill the potholes on the grass track behind the visitor centre in preparation for the Race for Wildlife. Between the moles, our grazier’s cattle and the surface not being too level to start with, the path was a little uneven. After three trailer loads of soil, we reckoned we had got the worst of the holes filled. Before lunch, the lorry arrived with another four tonnes of crushed concrete to finish off the riverbank footpath repairs. So now the volunteers know what they will be doing next week!
We only had Phil and David for the morning, so after lunch, we left Roger to his painting and Rob to his fire, and Nigel and I went down to New Fen North to try to finish off the bays Katherine had started last week. I managed an early bath for my left leg before I finished the first bay! My thigh waders smell bad enough already without filling one of them with black ditch mud. Once Nigel had stopped laughing, he helpfully pulled me and the brushcutter out of the ditch.
We got another bay cut and raked up and as I proceeded to start the final bay. I saw a photographer crawling down the main track intently watching something in the grass. He was trying to photograph a stoat which was leaping and bounding down the track towards me. I dashed back to the truck and got my little Sony compact camera and moved back towards the stoat. Despite me making squeaking noises, it didn’t think I was a rabbit and legged it back towards the photographer who was by now lying in the grass strip in the middle of the track. I think he got some decent shots even if I didn’t so hopefully he will send them in for you to see.
All in all, a satisfying day – the ragwort burnt up, most of the decking now is undercoated, the grass track pothole free and most of the New Fen bays opened up. All without tangling with any bowler-hatted henchmen!
Dave Rogers