Four members attended this month’s work party in showery but mild conditions. The west ditch was cleared as planned, Buddleia pruned (all four), and various areas cleared of dead vegetation. See the separate post for the wildlife sightings.

This month we will be clearing the north and west ditches of any accumulated debris and obstructions. Typically this involves lifting out broken branches, cutting back bramble runners, removing any tall vegetation, raking along the channel and possibly shovelling out excessive silt if it is blocking the flow. We should have plenty of time to look round the four ponds to see if there is any frogspawn.

Meet at the reserve on Saturday, 18th March at 9:30 am. We will finish around lunchtime. All members are welcome and no previous experience is necessary. Please wear appropriate work clothes, stout shoes, boots or wellies, and gardening gloves or equivalent. The tool list: secateurs, loppers, sturdy garden rake, spade or narrow shovel. Bring one or more if you can, otherwise just come along as we do have a few tools and always need someone to steer the wheelbarrow and do some light lifting.

For further information about the reserve visit the Jim Mart NR pages on the Ogston Bird Club website. You can contact Peter Faulkner by email (jimmart@btinternet.com) or on 0784 214 8888 if you have any questions about the work party.

With just two members in attendance we contented ourselves with checking, cleaning out and repairing 26 nest boxes on the reserve, and then removed the few remaining logs and small branches left over from the recent visit of our tree surgeon.

This month we will be checking and cleaning out the bird boxes on both the reserve and in the nearby wood and, subject to the weather conditions, having a bonfire.

Meet at the reserve on Saturday, 18th February at 9:30 am. We will finish around lunchtime. All members are welcome and no previous experience is necessary. Please wear appropriate work clothes, stout shoes, boots or wellies, and gardening gloves or equivalent. Most tools are available on-site but bring along anything you think might help; this month a short ladder, loppers, ‘Marigolds’, a small paint scrapper and a pen could prove useful.

Organised work parties take place at the Jim Mart reserve on the morning of the third Saturday in every month, except in December. For further information about the reserve visit the Jim Mart NR pages on the Ogston Bird Club website, or contact Peter Faulkner by email (jimmart@btinternet.com) or on 0784 214 8888 nearer the date.

Three souls braved temperatures in the lower single figures; fortunately without wind or rain. Whilst two members finished off some hedge-laying left over from the 2015/2016 season, the other applied a lump-hammer and chisel, sledge-hammer, and pick-axe (more or less in that order, repeatedly) on some perennially annoying concrete blocks left over from the days of the Waterworks demolition period. In time all three were engaged on the latter task, prior to moving on to light duties pulling out dead Willowherb stalks with, hopefully, the attached roots.
Once again the clearing of ditches was put off, the west ditch being mostly occupied by a couple of substantial limbs discarded by one of the Horse Chestnuts.