I eventually found time to do a bit of dry stone walling around Bobs bench, to give it a little wind break. A little raised bed behind should hopefully grow a nice little living screen.

We welcomed Ponteland Boys Brigade to the reserve today, where representatives presented 8 bird boxes that the boys had made. They kindly helped put up the bird boxes then helped move about 60 barrow loads of mud onto Love island.

Thanks to the guys and the two leaders Les and Darren who pitched in as well.

To try and use a Willow tree that was blown down earlier in the year I have constructed a Willow tit nest box from the stump.

Let’s hope our little feathered friends take up residence in the spring!

As part of the Dunces Corner pond project we have started on the island that will be in the middle of the pond.

We cleared the area:-

laid some flood barrier material :-

Laid some board :-

Added a paving surround and log edging:-

Watch this space as I have to fill the middle with the concrete blocks and then add the soil cleared from my wildflower meadow site:-

Well Love Island is just about finished, now we just need a pond to go around it!

It was a busy Sunday on the reserve, we had the bird ringing group in doing the monthly ringing and also 4th Morpeth scouts were in helping me out.

The scouts helped finish off 20 bird boxes which will be going up soon, they also continued to renew the boardwalk down to wiggle water pond. Then finally they helped with some path maintenance. There help was much appreciated.

The bird ringers had a good day too with over a hundred birds ringed in about 5 hours, we had 12 different species of bird, so quite a nice variety. 8 ringers arrived on site, the most we have had for a single session, just as well as its the biggest haul of birds we have had.

A few pics of our regular feathered friends:-

We have a very active little vole family in one of our log piles, I spent a little time taking a few pics to show them in action:-

Many thanks to the students from Newcastle and Northumbria University who visited on Wednesday 27th November and helped us with bird boxes.

Eleven students arrived to help construct 25 bird box kits and also to clean out the current boxes we have on site. On a very wet day we achieved most of what we wanted to do, thanks to the group who were out and about cleaning boxes with me, as they got particularly soggy!

Time to give a shout out to Barratt Homes and STP Construction, both firms have been very helpful allowing us to scavenge in there skips. STP are busy redeveloping Morpeth station and Barratts are building housing at the top of stobhill.

We have managed to acquire plywood panels, stone, wooden posts and fence panels, which will be used for our third hide and largest pond.

Many thanks for your help.

Unfortunately I found this little Great Spotted Woodpecker deceased under a tree, no sign of damage so I’m not sure why. Beautiful bird.