Bradley Stoke Green Gym / Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group

Update by Sara Messenger

Bradley Stoke’s Green Gym have been reverting to their very distant youth and have been making leaky dams in Patchway Brook.  Having checked the water levels to find that in some places the brook was down to barely a trickle less than 2 inches wide, we felt that something had to be done immediately to save the fish and other creatures that depend on the brooks. The dams are made from stone and leaves already in the brook and are all less than a foot high, they may be small but they have been ‘dam’ effective and hold back just enough water to create pools deep enough for the fish to survive as well as providing drinking water to our other parched wildlife.  Plans are also being made to put in more berms in Stoke Brook (which flows from Sherbourne’s Brake to the lake), these slow the flow of the water as well as helping create shelter and habitat.

Our first Bat Walk of the year went off without a hitch thanks to Jacky Wyatt our new events organizer and to Andy Selman of Avon Bat Group. Although less than a minute into the walk we lost our Police ‘escort’ as just inside Savages Wood we all walked through a dense and aromatic cloud, so they went off to investigate while we, a little more ‘chilled’ than before, went on with the walk. As well as owls and pussy cats we also found lots of bats, mostly we thought, different types of Pipistrelle. The insect corridors have been working well and several bats were found swooping through them and we were very pleased to see that after the lake desilting the bats have now returned to feed there. We have several bat boxes on the reserve but as I pointed out none of the group hold bat licences so we are unable to check them. Andy at this point mentioned that his licence does allow him to check boxes. We swooped faster than any Brazilian free-tailed bat could have and, whether it was an offer to do ours or not, we took him up on it! 

If you were unable to make any of our organized bat walks we do have at the library 10 bat detector packs, each with a detector and a guide, all free to borrow if you have a library card.

Our first nature walk of the year rather suffered from the weather as it was in the middle of the heat wave so, after us all wishing Neil a Happy Birthday, we set off towards the cooler woodlands instead of the baking meadows. Rupert Higgins is engaging and hugely knowledgeable but at least we knew one thing he didn’t, that the depressions in Savages Wood are actually bomb craters!  There used to be 5 or 6 but the Leisure Centre was built over them leaving just the 3.  We also found King Alfred cakes, Hairy Willow Herb, bees and Burdock which Rupert reminded us all how bitter it was when we had it as children. The younger generations in the group didn’t understand our childhood hardships so we nipped over to the supermarket and bought some Dandelion & Burdock for them to try, which was a lot nicer than we recalled it being or maybe it was sweetened by the ice lollies that had also fallen into my basket.

Next Walk: 

Nocturnal Nature Walk with Chris Sperring MBE: Friday 14th October 7.30pm – 9.30pm

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