This little beauty was hunting around Veras shed, happy to run around not more than 2 metres away from me. To intent on finding a nice vole and shrew lunch.

Mrs Frog has been very busy recently. I have frog spawn in both ponds and in other wet areas of the bog. Looks like it may be a good year for frogs.

We had a couple of Princes Trust guys on the reserve for a couple of weeks work experience. We did some tree planting:-

Hazel fence panel building :-

Bird box location:-

And finished with some hazel and reed panel construction:-

Many thanks to Calvin who did one week and Aidan who did two weeks work on the reserve.

Caught on camera, a fox that thinks he’s a pigeon? Or maybe they just enjoy a bit of bird seed.

Well the pond has only just been finished and we already have some interested tenants! We have been visited by 2 male and 1 female Mallards and not just a fleeting visit, they have been spotted on the pond 4 days out of the last 6 (and one of those days the pond was frozen!). Here a few pics of the potential tenants:-

Work has begun rebuilding hide 1 onsite. We are replacing the straw bale and tarpaulin structure with something a little more substantial:-

Some very enthusiastic female scouts have been helping out over the last couple of weekends. Painting pallets for boardwalks (Harriet and Zoe) and doing some path maintenance (Tilly). The parents and leaders worked hard too with screen construction and reed cutting.

I think the digging is over, we have closed the dyke and the pond is filling nicely:-

BEFORE

AFTER

My friend and artist Mandie Reay just delivered the remaining shutter pictures to complete the classroom trilogy. A very fine job she has done and what a smart classroom front we now have.