GUEST BLOGGER: Rodger Goodrick (Volunteer)
As a volunteer at Strumpshaw Fen I have experienced a wide variety of different roles, from helping at work days to outside events and field teaching. My latest experience has been going out with the Thursday work party. Not that I am new to the world of hands-on conservation work, as I have been doing it for over 20 years for another charity not far from Strumpshaw, where I still go regularly.
On Thursday 24th October the work party took me to Surlingham Church Marsh (I actually did my first conservation work here in the late 1980s). It was nice to go back. The task for the day was to clear encroaching scrub from a derelict dyke to allow an excavator to clear it and bring it back to life. It’s always sad to cut down trees, but if they were left unmanaged we would lose a lot of our rare and endangered wetland animals that need open water and reedbeds.
It was a great day - don’t get me wrong, it was hard work - but the other volunteers are really nice. The sun shone for us all day, bringing out a few dragonflies and butterflies. One of the highlights of the day was a skein of about 20 geese noisily making their way to a new feeding ground on the adjoining fields.
At the end of the day we all felt we had done a good job and most of it was ready for the excavator to do its work. So it was back to Strumpshaw, wondering what next week’s work party will be doing - maybe clearing scrub, cutting reed or whatever else is needed to give nature a home.