Guest Blog by Andy Waters

Now and again I get a chance to sneak off alone onto a reserve. It's a welcome opportunity to find some peace and to reflect.

My stroll this morning across Middleton Lakes did not disappoint.

Gold and rust-coloured leaves tumbled through the air, flocks of long-tailed tits kept me company, dragonflies darted along reed-fringed ditches and a kestrel soared against the stiff autumn breeze.

But it wasn’t this wild cast that captured most of my thoughts today.

I said hello to a group of farmers meeting at the car park before they shared their conservation knowledge and ideas with my colleagues.

A little further along the bridleway I came across teenagers welly-deep in the brook measuring the width and flow of the stream – an enjoyable GCSE geography assessment.

And across the canal, I could not resist watching a red digger scooping and re profiling the first buckets of mud that will create the Jubilee Wetlands Lifeline for Lapwings project, generously supported by £406,000 from Viridor Credits Environmental Company.

Today, autumn and Middleton Lakes provided a beautiful theatre. But it was the breadth and scale of people stepping up for nature that filled me with optimism for the future.