On Saturday our willing Volunteers gathered again for a morning of wet, muddy, backbreaking activity! Working under the guidance of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, we are maintaining the pond to maximising the ecological benefit. Our task this time was to remove the grass that was growing in the margins and floating in the shallow eastern end of the pond. The roots were trapping silt and over time would have completely covered the water.
The job was a tough one! The grass in the margins was securely rooted in the mud but with dedicated effort from the team, a good quantity was hoisted onto the banks. Following the advice of the Trust, we left the grass and roots on the bank so anything caught up in the raking could scurry back into the water.
The grass in the middle of the water was even more challenging, but we had a plan. With a length of rope and a small grapnel anchor, Glen and Mike worked an impressive hauling operation and cleared a large area of floating weed.
We also found some very interesting artifacts in the pond as you might expect, but more of that later!
When the pond has settled down again we will survey what grass is still remaining. Next time we will know what works best and come armed with not one but two grapnel anchor ropes!
We would like to thank our FVWPA Volunteers who got tired, wet and muddy to help make a difference to the wildlife in and around the pond. To remind us why we were there, a bank vole gave a swimming demonstration, we had fly-bys from dragonflies and a grey wagtail that flew away when we started flew right back when we finished.
One last thing – thank you very much to the kind young lady who dropped by to give us packets of biscuits for our coffee break!