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Nov/Dec 2020
News
Autumn in the Three Brooks nature reserve By Sara Messenger of the Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group
D
espite the challenges of 2020, we have been making some progress on the reserve. Some were teeny tiny steps like replacing orienteering post no. 4 or sending in our limited newt survey returns. While others, like Green Gym’s return to weekly workdays, or the improved paths project, were giant strides towards us making the best we can of the reserve and this strange year.
Improved paths
Hopefully, you will have experienced for yourself the new paths that snake through Savages Wood. Although on the first couple of days the site looked as though a giant demented mole had run amok leaving giant sandy piles everywhere, they were soon transformed into dry and safe walkways. When I popped down to see the finished job, the paths were already remarkably busy and were being enjoyed by both young and old and all those in between. Progress often has its price and this project’s price was the loss of some of the ash trees and a small wooden bridge removed to make way for the vehicles. As I and several other Green Gym members helped make that bridge, we were none too pleased to see all our hard work ripped out and tossed aside and promised dire retribution
A family enjoying the recently improved paths in Savages Wood
should it go! However, seeing the low sun slanting through the trees and the leaves gently falling on the dappled path as a young couple used it to soothe their new baby into sleep, we may just concede it was worth it. But please don’t tell SGC I said that!
Green Gym
Green Gym may now have to do without their mid-morning coffee and biscuits, but nothing gets them down for long and they have achieved much in the last couple of months. For the fourth year running we took part in Bristol Avon WaterBlitz, which aims to monitor the health of the rivers and waterways. This year, 313 ‘citizen scientists’ took part and collected samples at 266 locations giving Bristol Avon
Rivers Trust a fantastic spread of data across its catchment areas. We were also able to survey our dormouse boxes. Although we have no dormice, I discovered they are not unused. Much to the annoyance of the three field mice who, in one of them, had been happily snoozing and dreaming of fat juicy corn. Somehow a reproachful look seems so much harsher when it’s coming from something that small! We have had several ‘away days’ – one at Jubilee Green where we tidied the empty Davis Pond and the area around it and bagged up a huge pile of bark chippings given to us by BSTC. As a thank you, we first weeded and covered their gardens and the netball court side area with some of the chippings so that waiting parents could more easily socially distance. Another away day was the pond on Dewfalls Drive which is now also empty although we do not know the reason for this. Dewfalls required a herculean effort to return it to a tidy state but we managed. You may wonder why we left the fence edges so bare but this is so that when this winter we return to plant a new hedge we will not be disturbing any of the protected great crested newts that were once found here in abundance. We were told a few years ago that this used to also be a farm pond which was cobbled, although previously we dug down a couple of feet we were unable to find any and so dismissed the
idea. However, some animal has dug it’s own den here and a few cobbles have been unearthed so perhaps we just didn’t go deep enough. If anyone has any knowledge or pictures of this pond before the surrounding houses were built, we’d be very interested in them getting in touch.
The Common East
This area is jointly managed between Green Gym and the ‘in Bloom’ group and we spent another two weeks here and there wasn’t a lot we didn’t do: bramble bashing, putting up signs, attending to the insect hotel, adding bark to the path, pond maintenance, scything and tree trimming & removal, to name just a few! Many of the trees on the path between here and Cornfield Close have died and several have come down onto residents’ fences. We have reported the trees to SGC and although they arranged for the fallen ones to be removed the others have yet to be dealt with so we donned our hard hats and took down all those that are within our limits, while another group trimmed back the willow that appears to be on the losing side of its weekly battle with the bin men’s lorry! Two of the group headed off to Primrose Bridge to bramble bash and to clean the bridge’s nameplate, a task we think had not been done since the bridge was installed, as amazed walkers
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