beautiful morning

 Cool, but one of those lovely September morning I like so much. Hardly any litter. 5 runners, 2 of who went round twice. Met a school run mum returning home and we walked round together, had a good chat with some positive feedback. Spotted the ponies in DNS/Rugby Club.

Met 3 members of staff  checking signage round the site. While there some men ran past with "Run the Cities" tops on. Cant help but admire the sentiments. Friends to run 10k through all 55 English cities in 16 days in memory of father | The Independent 
https://www.justgiving.com/page/run-the-cities 

Water levels steady with next to no rain since last week.

Sunday 15th September

A family with small children careering about unsupervised on bikes, a couple of walkers.  

Swans on the bank.

Saturday 14th September

Wonderful sunny morning which brought out the joggers. They were friendly, but it was one of those visits when groups of 3 of them doing multiple laps doesn't make observing wildlife easy...

What shall we do with the blue tray of artefacts at the Durngate entrance?

Lots of litter at the Durngate bench, mostly from drinking alcohol.

But a beautiful day.

Thursday 12th September - New Graffiti?

A pleasant walk round, several groups of walkers. The swans and their signets grooming themselves totally oblivious to the couple of walkers watching on. No litter found. 

The information board opposite the Rugby Club Field entrance has been repaired and is no longer leaning backwards and the graffiti removed. Unfortunately what looks like a new set of graffiti has appeared on the bridge opposite the board. 

The reeds on the right hand side of the pond seem to have had a tunnel cleared through them, whether this is HWT work or something else I don't know. 

Wednesday 11th Sept

 A very impressive amount of work done yesterday!  Quiet this morning just met three people enjoying the sunshine and almost no litter.

Hopefully new information boards will be coming soon and the damaged one on the noticeboard by the bridge that was wonky and is now beautifully upright once again! 

Anne and Tim

Tuesday 10th September reserve update

 Hi all,

We had our work party down for the day.

Boardwalk - Stringer and one board replaced

Glade - Started scything this and hope to cut the rest and stack to the margin on next weeks work party. This is part of the wildflower mead management. Cutting end of season when most seed has dropped and a variety of species have utilised the habitat. Then removing the material to reduce nutrient enrichment and thatch, thus allowing wildflowers to flourish the following year. Mimicking grazing in some respects.

SPM gate - Adjusted so functions more effectively

Wonky interpretation board - No longer wonky, tamped with aggregate, flint and chalk. Email or call me if wonky again please!

Pond Clearance - 2 people in water for the day cleared the reed regen as part of its routine management. We are also working on extending the cutting area this autumn so starting to clear the accessible sections and hope to include that in the routine management moving forward. This is to create open still water habitat, a feature which lacks locally. Megafauna (cows and water buffalo for example) would do a good job in keeping this area open but difficult to manage so volunteers are the next best thing!

Still to do - 

- Few more boards want replacing

- Brushcut boardwalk margins

- Glade cutting and collecting

- Pond clearance

- Spray back the path in SPM in preparation for works

Please do contact me if you think anything else is needed to be done on site.

Thanks for your ongoing support and time,

Sam

Pleasant walk

 3 runners, no litter. Was accompanied by an Australian man (born in UK) who was about to walk South Downs Way. Interesting conversations. Broken board near south of boardwalk. I taped it. Also a little later this heron at Durngate entrance. Water just dipped below 37m after rising over the weekend. About 40mm rain on Thursday/Friday. Not much recorded Saturday/Sunday