Environmental Project - Clearing plants from Rotherwick Pond
Sat, Sep 16th 2023 at 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Pete West from Amphibian & Reptile Group will lead a small team of Rotarians into the pond to remove plants that affect protected wildlife.
We will meet at the village pond (near Rotherwick Church), but parking will be road side in the village, so you may need to park your car a small walk away. Please ensure that you park appropriately and avoid blocking access or gateways.
We will be manually removing vegetation in a pond to help create some open water when the pond fills over the winter. The pond is home to all three native species of newts, including the protected great crested newt. No experience is necessary as we will give a full briefing before we start. The more volunteers we have on the day, the bigger effect we will have on enhancing the ponds habitats for wildlife.
The work will involve manually pulling up mostly shallow rooted vegetation, but we will also use hand tools such as spades and hand trowels. The cleared vegetation will be piled up for a later collection. We will start at 9.30am and finish at 1pm, with a break part way through.
Please bring:
Water/drinks to keep yourself hydrated
Comfortable, but sensible footwear for a practical activity (boots, wellies, but no open toe/back footwear)
Spades/forks, small hand tools trowels etc, but rakes will also be useful for tidying up
Gardening/work gloves
Buckets/garden trugs etc for moving small loads of waste
Snacks/something to eat during the break
To keep the risk of spreading unwanted plants and animals, either to or from the pond, please follow the Check, Clean, Dry guidelines: https://www.nonnativespecies.org/what.../check-clean-dry/
Water/drinks to keep yourself hydrated
About Us
Hampshire is fortunate that the county covers a huge geographic area and a very diverse breadth of habitat including: the Isle of Wight, the New Forest National Park, the South Downs National Park, as well as many other unspoiled areas, including Woolmer Forest.
It is therefore unsurprising that we are host to 12 out of the 13 native amphibians and reptiles in UK, including rarities such as the Natterjack Toad, Sand Lizard and Smooth Snake, and wherever you live in the county there will be opportunities to survey and monitor an assemblage of amphibian and reptile species.
HIWARG formed in the Autumn of 2018 and is an affiliated independent ARG-UK group. The group focus is conservation of native UK species essentially around habitat management, surveying, public engagement, volunteer training & doing as much as possible to understand & protect the native species in the county.
All members are volunteers with a common interest.
If you have some spare time and would like to be involved with HIWARG, maybe you have taken a photo of a reptile or amphibian and would like it identified or maybe you have some other query, then please do get in contact info@hiwarg.org.uk
Contact Chris Flemming about this page:
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