Work party

There is a problem at the wooden footbridge into Village Green.

The bridge is perched on concrete piles that were let down into the bank nearly 30 years ago. Gradually, the bank next to the concrete piles is being worn away by dogs that find this the easiest route into the pool. The erosion is threatening the stability of the bridge.

Our aim this week was to construct the same sort of woven dead-hedge as the one we made last week to protect Studley Bridge.

See below for the result: a neat barrier, perhaps not enough to keep a determined dog out of the stream but enough, we hope, to remind dog owners that the stream is valuable wildlife habitat that needs to be protected. In a nature reserve dogs should always be under control.

There is a water splash in the main stream on the far side of Lambrok Meadow, especially installed for dogs to play in.

The stream that flows under the Village Green Bridge is a tributary to the Lambrok. It flows through the farmland between the reserve and Hoggington Lane. Its water quality seems to be good and it seethes with wildlife, including water voles, native aquatic mammals afforded the highest level of protection available in the UK, and water shrews. Water shrews are so rarely seen (or photographed) that very little information about them is available. The Mammal Society says that so little is known about them it is difficult to tell if their populations are under threat.

The photographs below were taken in the reserve by Simon Knight, our in-house wildlife photographer. Please help us protect Lambrok Stream.

Thank you.