Tag: Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group

Winter report from the Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group covering bird survey, newt pond clear ups, fallen tree clearance, bramble bashing, community orchard and hedge laying. Why not join them on their next monthly workday, on the first Saturday of every month? Or try Green Gym, which meets every Thursday.

I had planned to wax lyrical about nature’s quilt of a thousand greens and of its subtle shift as she gently changes into her autumnal colours of red and brown (writes Sara Messenger), but as I stand yet again cold and dripping, peering through the torrential rain I can see no thousand greens, just a few grey blurs. Autumn’s approach has been far from subtle!

The Thursday Green Gym group continues to grow. The volunteers’ recent tasks have included making a figure (Little Miss Muffet) for Bradley Stoke’s summer scarecrow trail and constructing an insect hotel at the Braydon Gate entrance to the nature reserve (at the southern end of Brook Way).

Latest report from the volunteers who make up Bradley Stoke’s Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group: Repairing the ‘apple bench’ in the community orchard behind Bradley Stoke Community School; clearing reeds and overhanging branches at Three Brooks Lake; and learning about water voles.

Volunteers from Bradley Stoke Green Gym and the Saturday group are now back working in the Three Brooks Local Nature Reserve. The pond at The Common East is teeming with newts but several dead but ‘healthy’ looking foxes, rats, squirrels, hedgehogs and pigeons have been found in the area.

“That’s one of the amazing things with nature – she doesn’t seem fazed by a pandemic, she cares not one bit who resides at No. 10 and she certainly has no interest in what we think she should be doing,” writes Sara Messenger of the Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group.

The results of a project to improve access to the popular Three Brooks Local Nature Reserve in Bradley Stoke have been unveiled. The project builds on the success of a scheme last year to install 500m of woodland paths which received a £25,000 grant from Enovert Community Trust.

Despite the challenges of 2020, we have been making some progress on the reserve. Some were teeny tiny steps … while others, like Green Gym’s return to weekly workdays, or the improved paths project, were giant strides towards us making the best we can of the reserve and this strange year.

We’ve always known what an inspiring place our nature reserve is, we’re just sorry it took a lockdown for it to be appreciated by everyone. At 46ha it’s the largest local nature reserve in South Gloucestershire, and it’s surrounded by one of the largest housing estates in Europe.