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Seven wildlife heroes rolled out today. Marcus, Reece, Ian, Steve, Martin, Dave, and Paul, and we felt that a stretch on the southern end of the path was just a little too tight.

There is that fine balance where we want the wildlife and nature to thrive, but we also want people to be able to use the path and connect with the natural surroundings to improve their outlook and general mental wellbeing, as well as the exercise that walking and cycling provides.

It was a gradual push out and lots of habitat piles created for insects and small mammals. It just makes it feel a bit more welcoming and a little less oppressive and kinda, on top of you. I would like to take the height out of the scrub so it’s about 5 feet, but we have run out of time. The bird nesting season starts in literally two weeks’ time. A job for September if we remember.

It’s getting people, the countryside, and nature meshing together. If the people part of it feels uncomfortable because they cannot see ahead or to the sides, then it’s not really working as it should.

We broke off for a much-needed caffeine kick and biscuits at half-time.

It’s a bit of a come-down from the bacon rolls of last week!! But it did the job and enjoyable banter was had by all.

I snuck off and did a litter-pick for just over 2 km of the path.

Little and often is the best way here. Hopefully, if people subconsciously think how litter-free it is, they might be less likely to discard their rubbish.

Something that warmed my heart was a den that I came across.

This is the sort of thing that I did as a kid, playing out in the countryside letting my imagination run wild. It also reinforces one of our three main pillars of what we do and why we do it.

A Path For Everyone.

We want as many people from all walks of life to be able to enjoy the path. This makes me feel that we are on the right track.

The other two pillars are:

A Wildlife Corridor.

A Safe Place For Mental Wellbeing.

That was about it for this week. I need to shin up my ladder and re-attach a few bird boxes that look a bit wobbly, but that might be a job for the weekend, other than that we are looking pretty fit and ready for the nesting season. I’m so looking forward to seeing it dry out a bit and see if what has been in my mind’s eye unfolds into reality over the spring and summer.

Dunchurch Bridleway

We (Ian, Steve and Paul) had a good session on this. The first task was to drain some of the standing water into the drainage channels or ditches, which I assume eventually work their way into rivers? The big river around here is the River Avon so I guess everything works its way to that.

Hopefully, it dries out and the ground gains some ability to absorb normal rainfall, rather than constantly puddling up.

We also knocked back about 200 metres of the path. We need it short so that when spring is here we are just strimming back new green shoots, rather than old and gnarly coarse grass that snags the strimmers and makes it really hard going.

We enjoyed coffee and biscuits at half-time on one of our benches. I wished that I had brought soup because it was bitterly cold.

But it was enough to warm us up and keep us going.

I seem to be developing an obsession with the sound of running water…

Our YouTube (I use YouTube because uploading videos to the blog requires me to “upgrade” to the next level, which costs even more in the monthly subscription!!)

It’s just nice to listen to the water doing its thing… I’m a Pisces so maybe something to do with that??

Or maybe I’m just a bit of a weirdo…

All-in-all, a good day and I like how we are improving this path and gradually getting it to our standard, which is wide enough for people to walk two abreast and plenty of benches for end-users to sit, have a conversation, picnic, contemplate life (which I have done an awful lot of over the last couple of weeks), or just connect with nature and enjoy the sound of the birds and views across the open countryside.

The next one is at the northerly part of Cawston just letting a bit of sunlight in to brighten it up and encourage wildflowers to pop up.

Until next time!

Paul