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).