Volunteer Sunday was upon us once again last weekend and what a glorious day we had for some site maintenance tasks in the morning, followed by the annual bird race in the afternoon. 9 people arrived bright and early for some polytunnel work, car park and footpath maintenance.
It is that time of year again, when the polytunnel starts to need lots of maintenance including weeding, watering and seeding. All five propagation bays are full at the moment with growing shoots and they are looking fantastic. Whilst filling the bays with water, the group weeded more than a bay’s worth of plugs and removed all the weeds from the polytunnel itself – a great effort and the place looks so much better! Weeding is important as it reduces the competition for space, nutrients, light and water, allowing the reeds to grow healthily ready for planting or sale.
The car park area has had a bit of a make over too, with the white lining redone and the area swept and leveled out. The public footpath too requires maintenance and cutting back the over growing vegetation makes it much easier for visitors to use. A couple of great jobs – thanks to all involved.
And to the annual bird race! Two teams competed this year, aiming to record the most bird species on site throughout the afternoon. Almost 60 species were seen in total including hobby, yellow wagtail, grey partridge, 8 species of warbler, ringed plover and dunlin. But, we are a competitive lot and as we reconvened at the end of the afternoon, the big question was….who had won? After a tense few minutes, it was revealed that the winning total was 55 species, seen by Barrington, Sue, Mark, Will and my good self!
Well done to all and thanks for a very enjoyable day.