This is just a quick note to let you know that I have promised Parish Councillor, Robert Drew, that I would drum up a Friends of Ali's Pond work party to litter pick the Recreation Ground, the Nature Reserve, The Pound and Russell's Field as part of the Sonning Spring Clean, on Sun 23rd April. So if you are able to make it please could you let me know by return e-mail.
Meet at the cricket pavilion at 10.30 Sun morning.
Many thanks,
Ali.
Just when the newts thought it was safe to get back in the water ................some rather misguided individual has just dumped app. 30 large (6"-10") goldfish in the pond !
Either this is malicious (ie a prospective developer looking to eradicate the Great-crested Newt population) or it is borne of ignorance (ie someone who wanted to fill in or clear out their garden pond and find a good home for their fish !) I prefer to believe it is the latter unless told otherwise !
Unfortunately this won't be a good home for the fish, 'cos the herons will get them all and if they don't, the survivors will all perish when the pond dries up later this year as it is likely to if this drought continues.
Worse still, is the impact that the fish will have on the newts and other pond residents - basically by eating them ! That's why I will be removing all the fish with a seine net in the next few days !
If anyone happens to know who did this, please could you let them know that above all, it is illegal to introduce non-native species like this into the wild.
On a lighter note, another big thankyou to Stephen Humphreys who has just added some of my wildlife pics to the Ali's Pond bit of the Sonning and Sonning and Sonning Eye website.
Cheers for now,
Ali Driver.
Anyone fancy doing a bit of tree-planting at the Rec next weekend?
David Penny, Jim Reed, Pam Glasspool and I will be planting some native trees and shrubs in The Pound (the small strip of woodland next to the car park), and some ornamental trees on the car park edge of the cricket field. 11.00 a.m. start next Sunday 12th Feb - meet at the car park. A couple more helping hands would be good.
Please let me know as soon as convenient.
Cheers, Ali D
Our next friends of Ali's Pond work party event will be quite a big one, so I'm hoping for a good turn-out !
It will be held on Sunday 20th Nov - meet at the cricket club at 10.30 a.m.
The session will involve:
- Transferring dead elm logs and brushwood from near the cricket pavilion to the log and brushwood piles within the nature reserve.
- Litter clearance in the reserve and Pound Copse, alongside the car park.
- Maintenance of bird and bat boxes in the reserve.
- Maintenance of planted trees and shrubs in the reserve.
I'll send a reminder nearer the time.
Cheers, Alastair
Hi all,
With forecasters predicting a bit of decent weather this week, now's the
time to get out to the nature reserve, cos it's blooming and buzzing
!
We
had a great session pond-dipping with the Sonning Primary School "After School Club" a
week or so ago. Smooth Newts, Frogs, Grass Snake, and a Lime Hawk-moth
(from the previous
night's moth trapping catch) were among the stars.The next session will be with the Beaver Scouts on Fri 17th.
Talking of moths, National Moth Night is 9th July and if there is enough interest, I could set the moth trap in the nature reserve and we could see what turns up (between about 10.00 and midnight).
Please could people let me know if they'd like to do this. There will be plenty of moths if the weather is warm and dry, which it should be. I could also see if I can get a bat expert along with a bat detector or two.
Please let me know by 30th June.
Cheers, Ali D.
Please see my personal comments to Wokingham DC on the above planning application by clicking HERE. I only just found out about this application recently, even though the application was posted at the beginning of April !
Anyway I hope they'll take my views into account, despite missing the deadline.
Cheers, Alastair.
Sonning Parish Council are organising a Village Spring Clean - ie litter-pick - on the weekend of 23rd and 24th April.
I am organising two groups - Friends of Ali's Pond and Sonning Cricket Club - to participate in this by cleaning up the area in and around the King George's Field recreation ground and the nature reserve on Sunday 24th April starting at 11.00 a.m.
Robert Drew who is co-ordinating the event, has confirmed that a skip will be provided in the car park near the cricket pavilion and the cricket club group will be taking the opportunity to clear away the larger junk that has accumulated behind the beech hedge over the last few years.
I will be sending a reminder to you all nearer the time, but in the meantime, please could you let me know whether you can spare an hour or two to help make this event the great success it deserves to be.
Many thanks,
Ali Driver.
I encourage you to book a ticket for the talk below, to be given by one of our members, Andy Glencross, if you haven't already. Andy has been a great ally of ours since the nature reserve was first created back in 1997 and has been able to sanction various WDC grants for us over the years. He has a wealth of experience in local wildlife conservation matters, and I'm sure his talk will be of great interest to a wide range of people interested in the local natural environment. Please ring one of the contacts below if you want tickets. The cost is only £2 for SSES Members and £4 for non-members.
Cheers, Ali D.
March 18th Sonning & Sonning Eye Society: 'Biodiversity in Sonning & Wokingham', a talk by Andy Glencross, Countryside Officer Biodiversity, Wokingham District Council [Based at Dinton Pastures]. Pearson Hall, 8.00pm
Tel: Clare Grove: 969 9383
Diana Coulter: 969 2132
Tony Swell: 969 1390
Thanks for the response to my last message. We now have enough people for the work party - thank you Brian and Melanie, Steve Chapman and Andy Barker - I'll meet you at the reserve.
I've just been over to the site to check the feeders and the food's going down fast !
The first bird I saw using them was a Nuthatch, with its mate hanging around nearby. Nuthatches are really attractive and vocal at this time of year, and they nest in holes in trees, so there's an outside chance they might adopt one of the nest boxes in the reserve. If you're visiting the reserve, take some binoculars if you have a pair, cos you'll get great views of all the birds using the feeders.
Cheers for now,
Ali D.
Thanks for the responses to the corrugated iron request [See below]. We now have some installed at the reserve thanks to Tony Gubba's offer, so no need for any more replies on that one!
The bat and bird boxes and feeders have now arrived as well. I've put two feeders up, but I need a couple of people to give me a hand with the box installation. We've got two tit boxes and a bat box for the reserve, and at Pam Glasspool's request, I have ordered some bird and bat boxes for Beech Lodge which the Baden Powell groups are paying for. I have offerred for the FAP group to put them up as well.
So I propose that we do this at 10.00 on Sat 29th Jan.
Please could you let me know if you can make it, asap. I only need a couple of people, so first come first served!
Cheers, Ali.
A few things:
- Please see article attached by clicking HERE, recently submitted for Feb Parish Mag.
- Once the bird and bat boxes mentioned in the article, have arrived, I'll send out an e-mail calling for a few pairs of hands to help me put them up.
- Does anyone have any old (but not too rusty) sheets of corrugated iron, lying around in their garden, that could go to a good home? I'd like 2 or 3 to lay down (out of sight) in the reserve, to provide warm cover for reptiles, amphibians and mammals. We've not yet recorded slow worms in the reserve, but they may be there - if they are we'll find them under these sheets after a while. This is also a great way to show schoolchildren and adults alike, some of the secretive wildlife that occurs on the site. Please e-mail me if you have and I'll collect it asap.
Thursday,
October 14, 2004: 'We've won!'
Dear all,
With reference to the note 3 in my previous e-mail (below), I've just been
told that we've won the 2004 Dorothy Morley Community Conservation Award
for Berkshire ! Apparently the judges were very impressed with the large
numbers of you on the Friends Group and the large number who actually
volunteer for conservation work, as well as the rich variety of wildlife
recorded at the site, the integration with the rest of the community,
and the determination we have shown to restore the site since the travellers
and fire damage of 2003.
It is a credit to the Friends Group and to the Parish and District Councils
who have both supported the project since its inception in 1997, that we
have won this award at the first attempt. This is even more noteworthy
because the judges tell me that the competition was much fiercer than in
the previous two years that this award has been running. The Berks, Bucks
and Oxon Wildlife Trust who run the award scheme, will be organising a
publicity event in the village, probably on the weekend of 27/28 November,
and the FAP group will be alerted by e-mail.
I still intend to run the work party on 14th Nov p.m. unless it can be
coincided with the presentation ceremony and associated publicity which
will be on 27th Nov a.m. or 28th Nov a.m.
Please could you therefore let me know your availability for all 3 dates
asap.
This is where we really need you again folks, so please turn out if you
can !
Thankyou for all your help and support over the last few years to get us
this far.
Cheers, Ali D.
Monday, October 04, 2004: 'Update on Ali's Pond LNR'
Dear all,
A lot has been happening "on and off the field" in the last couple
of months, so I thought it was time for a brief update on events associated
with the nature reserve.
- Management - haycutting and clearing was successfully completed at the beginning of Sept by a contractor - it took all day due to the thickness of the grass !
- New mammal species recorded at Ali's Pond - I recently took part in the Mammal Society's National Water Shrew survey, by setting some baited tubes in the long grass near the pond, in an attempt to see if these elusive creatures ( the UK's largest Shrew - see attached image) were present. This involves putting blow-fly pupae (casters) into a small piece of plastic piping and seeing if the wee beasties leave their droppings in there after consuming the pupae. A positive record was confirmed by the Mammal Society for one of the tubes.
- Award application - I've submitted the project for the Dorothy Morley Conservation Awards for Berkshire, on behalf of Friends of Ali's Pond, given that we put a lot of effort into hedgerow restoration etc after last year's fire. I'm not holding my hope's up too high cos it's only a small project, but you never know !
- A new Sonning website is being set up by village resident, Stephen Humphreys - check it out at www.sonning.net This is an excellent initiative and it already includes information and images of Ali's Pond LNR.
- I would like to convene a work party for Sun 14th Nov at 2.00 p.m. to create log piles for amphibians to replace those burnt out by the 2003 fire. Dr Bailey in the property next door has kindly agreed to let us have plenty of old stacked rotting logs. We also need to install a few shrub guards and remove some invasive Australian Swamp Stonecrop from the pond. If time allows we can also do some clearance in the copse near the King George's Field car park. Please could you e-mail me back to let me know if you can make it, by Fri 22nd Oct
- There will be a village wildlife and architecture walk being led by Brian O'Callaghan, Diana Coulter and myself on Sun 17th Oct at 14.30 starting from Beech Lodge. There are still a few places available for this walk, so if you'd like to come along, please contact Diana Coulter on 969 2132, or Clare Grove on 969 9383, or Tony Swell on 969 1390.
That's it for now.
Best wishes, Alastair.
