I welcomed the Newcastle Railway Walking Group on the reserve today. They included Clarks Bog on their walking circuit today and I gave the group a tour.

This was the largest group (26) to be given the tour so far and seemed to enjoy it (i hope!)

I had a nice surprise yesterday when a donation of 11 bird boxes arrived courtesy of Morpeth Scouts (4th).

I’m sure my feathered friends will appreciate the choice of accommodation now on the reserve.

I welcomed Jamie on site this week, for a weeks work experience, as part of his Princes Trust course.

Jamie was a big help with the loading and unloading of our stone salvage, I was able to give him experience operating my mini digger, which hopefully will help on his CV, as he would like to do landscape gardening or something similar.

We also did some reed cutting and a little bit of construction, building some steps.

Jamie worked hard, without complaint, all week and I wish him well for his future.

Many thanks to Norman and Peter at Morpeth Windows, they are renovating a garden in Morpeth and offered us some very nice sandstone and paving slabs (also helped load the trailers). Nine trailer loads of stone and two trailers of paving slabs later my back was suffering and many muscle aches, but well worth it.

We will also incorporate a trailer load of salvaged stone from the Morpeth Station renovation.

The stone is being used to build the retaining wall around the new reflection pool, watch this space for progress!

Thanks to the scouts (and helpers) who helped build our reed screens around the bird feeding area last week.

After an absence of about 3 years we now have a Barn Owl hunting over the bog again. I have seen it now for several nights over the last week, a beautiful bird.

Our resident flock of Linnet were in good voice this week.

I gave a talk yesterday to the local U3A group at Hepscott village hall. I talked about the story of Clarks Bog, a bit of local history, a bit of geology, and a run down of what we have done so far, ending with our plans for the future.

It seemed to go down well, hopefully they found it interesting.

Here’s a little view of the inside of our new hide, insulated with padded seats, and even carpet. What more could a twitcher need?

One of my regulars, hunting on the reserve, this male Kestrel is a beauty.