St Nicks

Weather: Cloudy & dull, cold, no wind Observers: Kaye, Linda, Ian, Phil Saturday night’s snow covered St Nicks to a depth of 4 – 5 inches, and very little has melted since then. The eco-volunteers have been busy clearing some of the main paths, but much of the reserve remains blanketed under snow. The dull […]

Present: Jonathan, Paul, Stephen, Steven, Eileen, Darren Today work started on creating an area to grow a selection of soft fruits at St Nicks. After spending so much time planning last week, everyone was excited and ready to get stuck in. With his horticultural background, Paul took the lead of this project and soon a […]

Present: Jonathan, Paul, Eileen, Stephen and Darren Secure in the knowledge that St Nicks’ Community Orchard was finally in the ground and waiting for spring to come around, the Bearing Fruit Core Group could now concentrate on what interesting projects Year Two of the project might bring. Two such projects will include taking over the […]

Weather: Bright, still, often sunny, but bitterly cold. Observers: Kaj, Janetta, Phil, Kaye. The reserve looked beautiful, with the sun highlighting the stems of Dogwood and greening Willow, but the sheet of ice on the pond should have warned us…. Birds: Setting off from the Centre, we stopped to try and count the House Sparrows […]

After nine months of planning and preparation, St Nicks’ very own community orchard is finally in the ground, ready to flourish and provide a free and delicious food source for the surrounding community! Bearing Fruit ended up hosting four separate planting sessions to get all of the trees in, but it was worth it as […]

In cold, still, sunny weather, ten visitors joined Ivana and three Wildwatch regulars to take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We decided we had enough confident observers to cover seven different areas of the reserve, including the Environment Centre garden. Between us we found 20 species – not quite as high as on […]

Weather: Cloudy with occasional sunny spells; light breeze sometimes freshening; fairly mild but with distinct wind chill factor. Observers: Janetta, Linda, Phil, Kaye After a very wet Tuesday, some of the unmade paths were muddy and water levels in the Becks were fairly high, but Spring was cautiously back in the air, with singing birds, […]

Weather:  Broken cloud with bright spells, relatively mild. Observers: Janetta, Kaj, Linda, Phil, Kaye Yesterday was bitterly cold and frosty.  This morning the frost had vanished, leaving the air rather damp and the thawing ground rather muddy, and causing Scott to speculate on whether the sun had come out during the night.  The day felt […]

Weather: Mild, cloudy but dry and quite bright, fairly still. Observers:  Linda, Kaye Birds were singing, spring was in the air, and the very mild weather made it a good day for lingering, so we covered less ground than usual but were amazed at how fast the time passed.  Tang Hall Beck was still high, […]

Weather: Overcast, occasional light drizzle, fresh breeze Observers: Linda, Ian The skies might have been grey, but St Nicks still had plenty of colour! And it wasn’t just the birds, but there were still a few flowers lingering on. Both the becks had a good volume of water, flowing strongly with a brown, muddy appearance. […]