The Fujitsu team at Fleet Pond

Rachel Jones, Hart Countryside Ranger, writes:

“A group of Fujitsu employees came out for their annual team day to Fleet Pond on Monday 20 January. They helped us clear pine saplings off the heath, an important part of the conservation work there.

Wood Lane heath is a ‘wet heath’ that was designated a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation because of its heathland vegetation and it’s notable species.

Lowland heathland is classed as a priority habitat under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP). Fleet Pond Local Nature Reserve/SSSI has small areas of this habitat that has nationally suffered great decline in the last 200 years.

As well as a specific grazing regime, work by volunteers is needed to keep control of the pine tree saplings that threaten to take over the heath from the surrounding woodland.

A beautifully clear start to the day (if a little cold)

The photographs show the start of the morning which was beautiful but cold! Before everyone headed off for lunch, enormous progress was made clearing the majority of the saplings.

Thank you to the team, and their leader Carol Dunford, for all the good work carried out. Most of the volunteers had not been to the area before and travelled from London and Ealing, oh and Kings Road, Fleet!”

Clearing out the scrub, with the pond in the background

David Pottinger writes:

Here are some photos from the very popular volunteer event that took place on Sunday 12 January, over 35 volunteers were present!

As explained in a previous post, Natural England has approved the construction of the new viewing platform on the eastern side of Fleet Pond and the task for Sunday was to clear scrub and saplings from the construction site and any that would interfere with the view over the reeds.

As you can imagine, with such a large team an enormous amount of work can get done in a relatively short period of time (one morning). So these conservation tasks really do make a big impact on the general upkeep of the Pond. The following photos show some typical activities:

The larger items of wood were gathered together to form a habitat for insects

Felling trees, hard hats required!

Hopefully these photos give a good feel for the sort of work carried out in our regular Sunday volunteer sessions. A collection of photos from a wide variety of volunteer events in 2013 can also be found here.

If you would like to join us in our conservation activities, please contact Rachel Jones for further information and booking – contact details here.

Photo credits: the top two and bottom photos are courtesy of Kim Byrne, with the others kindly provided by Rachel Jones and Colin Gray.