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| Our campfire flag made for Father's Day Survival Day |
Well, June was the beginning of the British Summertime….only
we think the sun forgot the memo!
At the start of the month, summer looked promising and we
had a lovely Bat weekend. Members from Essex Bat Group popped down with loads
of information and a few special friends to show you and to talk everything
about bats. Great for the kids to see and they will also be joining us for our
Bat Walks later in the year!
We also were lucky enough to have some wonderful weather for
he father’s day weekend events. On Saturday, we had a delicious afternoon tea,
whilst on Sunday we had a father’s day survival day! Great to see so many
families turning up to participate in the best dens built, the best family
flags made and of course, who could light the best fire. We supplied the hot
chocolate and marshmallows and forest popcorn and a few of you even brought your
own sausages to cook, delicious! We had a great time and we hope you all
enjoyed yourselves too! Excellent work on the fire lighting with (we think) all
of you managing to light your own fires too! Well done!
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| Lots of Toadlets spotted this month on the trail! |
We had planned to hold our first Bat walk of the summer this
month, but unfortunately, the weather turned against us. On the 23rd
– the date we had organised for the walk – the heavens opened for what seemed
like the entire week, with thunderstorms rolling over the reserve too! Not ideal
weather to have a Bat walk in and not great it you are a bat either! IT was a
sad decision, but we decided to cancel that walk. Our next Bat Walk is now
scheduled for 21st July, so we hope to see you all there!
Our volunteers have been working hard in all the weather
too! The mixture of rain, followed by sun, followed by more rain is great if
you’re a plant and this as lead to our brambles and ferns growing at a
tremendous rate! We recorded about 1ft of growth on the Brambles in only 1
week! The volunteers have been bashing these down to open up views and keep the
pathways open, so excellent job and a huge thank you to their hard work!
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| Our natural woodland craft picture made by threading leaves and grasses through hessian material. |
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| Some of the natural crafts produced this month from the Birthday Parties |
Although the weather hasn’t been exactly summery, we have
had some great wildlife spots, with lots of Grass Snakes being spotted basking
in the sunlight between the showers. The many school groups we have had in this
month (we were fully booked for school visits and only have 1 day left available
in July!) have been tuning their forest ID skills, looking out for Hornbeam and
Oak trees, learning about the bugs and minibeasts that live on them and in the
ponds, looking at the Toadlets around the trail. Quite a few newt tadpoles are being discovered whilst pond dipping.
These are beautiful critters, and once looked at, are safely and gently
returned to the pond. We also found a few female stag beetles too!
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| Russ Collins June photo competition winner! |
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| Steven Browning with this fantastic runner up shot! |
This month's photo competition was themed around the insects in the reserve. As ever, we had some fantastic entries and are pleased to announce R. Collins as the winner, with his great bumble Bee shot, with S. Browning as the runner up with this fab shot of an insect on a leaf. Great photos!
All in all a busy but good month, we just hope the rain stays
away for the next bat walk in July!
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| Details for our next Bat walk in July |
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