So, today is Valentine’s Day. Once that brief novelty has faded it makes sense to turn to that true love of your life: wildlife and the outdoors. It might be 50 shades of grey outside but you can cheer yourself up by caressing a tree, 20 trees to be precise, as you help to improve a home for a young family in Liz’s Wood. Yes, true love will soon be in the air again so we urgently need to clean out our remaining bird boxes in the wood near the Jim Mart Reserve. For those that prefer some rough and tumble there is always plenty to tackle around the bramble areas, or you could scratch the reserve’s back with a vigorous rake through the nettle patch. If your preference is to leave a deeper impression then directed digging will be permitted on the day.

To help out at the next work party, meet at the reserve on Saturday, 21st 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. Appropriate tools to bring, although some are available, would be loppers, rake, garden fork or spade. For the nest box cleaning a pair of ‘Marigold’ type household gloves are useful; the reserve has a folding step ladder but a short single section ladder would be more practical.

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 visit the Jim Mart NR pages on the Ogston Bird Club website https://ogstonbirdclub.co.uk/ , or contact Peter Faulkner by email ([email protected]) or by telephone (0784 214 8888).

A Happy New Year to everyone. If you haven’t made enough resolutions for 2015 yet, then why not aim to help out (more) at the club’s only wholly-owned nature reserve. You could even abandon some of those guilt-driven resolutions which you already know that you aren’t going to keep, try some of these instead; no need for expensive gym membership when the exercise is free at the Jim Mart reserve; save money by joining our monthly work-party instead of going on the Saturday morning shopping trip; improve your knowledge of the natural world by identifying and recording the wildlife you see on the reserve (500+ known species for you to find, and many more species still waiting to be discovered, probably).

So, to get OBC members mentally attuned in time for the 2015 Big Garden Bird Watch (24th-25th Jan.), the main task for this month’s work party will be to check and clean out the reserve’s nest boxes in readiness for the 2015 breeding season. If helping the fluffy feathered things to tidy their summer houses isn’t your idea of real work, then we can provide a good line in digging holes or cutting bits off hedges and trees.

To help out at the next work party, meet at the reserve on Saturday, 17th January, 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. Appropriate tools to bring, although some are available, would be hedge clippers/shears, loppers, garden fork or spade. For the nest box cleaning a pair of ‘Marigold’ type household gloves are useful; the reserve has a folding step ladder but a short single section ladder would be more practical.

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 visit the Jim Mart NR pages on the Ogston Bird Club website https://ogstonbirdclub.co.uk/ , or contact Peter Faulkner by email ([email protected]) or by telephone (0784 214 8888).

The November work party will be the final one for this year, so we aim to finish the clearance of vegetation from the surroundings of the Hide Pond. We will then move on to removing bramble ‘runners’ from where they are encroaching into grassland habitat. If anyone would prefer to check and clean out the reserve’s nest boxes, or to assist with the bonfire, then that would be welcome.

Repeat notice – On a separate subject, the establishment of a large ‘insect hotel’ or ‘wildlife stack’ on the reserve would be an asset. This could be a good stand-alone project for one or two club members to champion, with the only stipulations being that it should not require submission of a planning application to the local council, should use 100% recycled materials and should require close to zero maintenance. Everything else is open to discussion and imagination – if anyone is keen to take this on then drop me an email initially (see below) or speak to me at the work party/monthly bird walk.

To help out at the next work party, meet at the reserve on Saturday, 15th November, 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. Appropriate tools to bring, although some are available, would be hedge clippers/shears, loppers, garden fork or spade, rake. For the nest box cleaning a pair of ‘Marigold’ type household gloves are useful; the reserve has a folding step ladder but a short single section ladder would be more practical.

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 contact Peter Faulkner by email ([email protected]) or by telephone (0784 214 8888).