Eco-Committee Pond Maintenance - 17.11.21

Last week our wonderful Eco-Committee worked with the Thames Chase volunteers to help maintain our Pond and Orchard Area and learn more about the exciting things that are happening there! Here is an excerpt from Becky Gibson who is the Conservation Project Manager for Thames Chase.

It was lovely to meet the Eco Committee and see their enthusiasm for the area and the pond life we discovered.  Each child had a go with a net and between them they found lots of invertebrates living in the pond which is a great sign that it has become established and the diversity of animals was great.

They were able to spot the differences between them and we had tray with 11 different species in:

Ramshorn snail

Pond snail

Water louse – many of them

Damselfly larvae – many of them

Swimming mayfly nymph

Flatworm

Water fleas

Pond Skater

Freshwater Shrimps

Two others I cannot recall – bet the children can!

In terms of maintenance, we removed some sections of the plants out of the pond but put them on the side so any creatures caught in their roots could escape back to the water and strimmed the grass in the pond area, which was very long. There was a large rip to the left of the pond which we have repaired and a number of smaller holes.  This should allow the level of the water to rise naturally with rainfall.

We were impressed with the success rate of the trees we planted with the children earlier this year.  They are doing really well.  We removed a few that had failed and replaced a few canes and guards where needed. We strimmed an area where the school field meets the new grassed area just to tidy that up but the rest looks good and best kept ‘wild’. Becky Gibson