Cold but beautiful

The last blog posting mentioned the marvellous number of sightings of many different species that have been added to the whiteboard at the information point at the Lower Street end of the main boardwalk. This is an example of the valuable contribution we ordinary people are making to scientific data gathering; what has become called Citizen Science. One of the biggest Citizen Science projects is of course the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, and this year’s one takes place next weekend. Anyone can take part; you don’t need a big garden as that’s not what ‘Big Garden’ refers to. You don’t even need a garden; a window box or a park will do just as well. As usual, I will be doing it for the required hour some time during 27^th to 29^th January. Full details are at The RSPB Wildlife Charity: Nature Reserves & Wildlife Conservation

It might have been bloomin’ cold this morning, but it was also very beautiful, and 16 frost-hardy volunteers turned out to make the most of it. Here are two trudging through the frozen reeds to join the other early starters.

The frost was making everything atmospheric.

 

On the subject of benches, sharp-eyed regular visitors to the Common will have noticed that the one on the Warren Road side of the Beck has had to be removed, as it had rotted and become unsafe.

Problems started early on when we struggled to get the sheets out of the container, as they were frozen together! The winch rope was also frozen and took a lot of unravelling! But how beautiful did the common look.

This was at the start, trying to open the frozen sheets 

Team Leaders represent the pinnacle of technical ability - they’ve progressed to wielding rakes.

Line dancing on the Common looks a bit different 

Coffee break was delivered to the working area and served from the floor - that’s dedication!

Regular readers of this blog will be painfully aware of our tendency to invent terminology. Today it was again centred on the dumping process. With a lot of trees to fit dumped vegetation between, we need to use every possible bit of a painstakingly cleared area, and this involves a lot more manual tipping off the sheets than otherwise. Noel (or was it Brian?) directed us to the “pocket” we needed to drop the drag sheet into – much like snooker, or in view of the level of difficulty, billiards. Here is a sheet being potted. 

This was tiring work: the reed stems, which had been cut a few days before, were frozen to the ground, and to each other, meaning that considerable effort was required to shift them. No wonder Bob fancied a little lie down!

Team work makes the dream work.

Here’s the expansive view from the boardwalk at the end of the session. One more session in a fortnight’s time should see the job done.

Here's Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Just a quick thank you for turning out this morning. It was a very cold start. I have been doing this for 20 years and never have the sheets and rope been frozen solid. So you all coped admirably with the extreme conditions.

I hope you all found it enjoyable and are pleased with the results. We certainly are. Hopefully one last go in two weeks will see the end of the reed bed for this year and we look forward to seeing you all then.

best wishes

Margaret and the team leaders.

And finally, anyone going down Pit Street will have noticed that the Pit is back to looking nice now, with a lot more water in it than for the last few months.