Well, it was a bit wet and a bit muddy but luckily the really heavy rain held off until after we had finished our tasks for the day. Thirteen of us turned up at Whisby Nature Park, on the edge of Lincoln, including two new members.
To be fair, it wasn’t just the rain which made this a rather wet task. We
were also working in and around Grebe Lake, shovelling wet mud. A team of six
took the boat out to Bruce’s Island. This island is being improved as a roosting
site for water birds; reducing the height of the island means it gets covered by
water in the winter, making sure it doesn’t get taken over by plants, which the
roosting birds don’t like.
This photo show our intrepid team stranded in the middle of the lake slowly digging away their remaining refuge.
The rest of us tackled two sites which are intended to encourage kingfishers.
Some time ago, on a previous workday, we cut away part of the bank to create two
mini cliff faces in the hope that kingfishers would make their nest holes in
them. However, they haven’t. One reason might be that there was still part of
the bank below the cliff faces, meaning that predators could reach any nest that
was built. So our task was to cut down from the existing cliff into the lake so
that there was a sheer face right down into the water. Work space was limited
and a bit precarious as we cut away the land we were standing on!
But
the moment when the water rushed into fill the area we had dug out was very
satisfying – even though we were by then very muddy.
Now we just have to wait and see if the kingfishers use it – they’d better!, Jude