Volunteers from Cardiff Rivers Group spent the morning putting the ‘island’ back where it belongs in the pond at one of the wetland areas at Forest Farm Country Park.

It had become rather bare over the past year or two, so it was moved to the edge of the pond a few weeks ago, to replenish the soil and plant it up with suitable things. Unfortunately, adding all that weight meant it got grounded in the clay — even eight people couldn’t move it a millimetre.

So they spent a couple of hours removing all the plants, soil, logs and membrane, refloated the island, then carried all the plants, soil, logs and membrane out to it and put them back, and finally moored the island back in its original position.

One of the local herons seemed pleased to have it back where it belonged.

A brave gang of around 20 volunteers was not put off by the rainy conditions on Sunday morning, 23 September, as they ventured to Forest Farm to help the Cardiff Council Park Rangers clear reeds from one of the wetland ponds.

Every year, it’s vital to remove excessive growth of reeds to ensure the survival of the pond and surrounding wetland environment, which provides an important range of habitats for a large number of species — not only the obvious birds (such as kingfishers, moorhen, heron, snipe, water rail, reedbuntings, wagtails, and even the occasional bittern), but also fish, amphibians, lots of invertebrates (above and below the waterline), and a wide variety of plants.

The hardy volunteers spent two hours at this back-breaking task, and in that time managed to clear reeds both from the perimeter of the pond itself, and from areas neighbouring the pond that will form a ‘scrape’ of reed stubble over the autumn and winter.

And, midway through the morning’s event, everyone was delighted to see the sun come out and the clouds clear to give blue skies — the sun always shines on CRG!

Cardiff Rivers Group made a return to Forest Farm to help the Rangers with a spot of reed clearing and raking in the main pond.

The 16 volunteers spent 2 hours helping Cardiff Council rangers with the muddy task of reed removal. The reeds had threatened to choke the pond, so reducing its biodiversity and habitat value.

As if to stress the importance of this pond habitat, a water vole, heron and toad came out to say hello to the volunteers!

Group member, Louise Tambini, said, “Today has been a change from our usual work, and although it was physically very demanding the volunteers really enjoyed themselves. It was lovely to see the local wildlife on site, as it just reinforces the importance of these green spaces in the City and how we must all play our part to look after them”.

We were at Forest Farm yesterday (1 August) to make a start on clearing out  the feeder stream.

The feeder stream used to bring water from the River Taff at Radyr weir for use by  the Melingriffith Tin Plate Works , but that closed in 1957.

As you can see, it had become pretty choked up with trees:

But after a couple of hours of some people in waders wielding saws…

… everyone helping to carry out the brash (the cut-down trees,  branches and logs)…

… and a good deal of clearing up of dead wood and litter (mainly loads of plastic drinks bottles) that had been causing more obstructions…

… there was a lot more light and the stream was flowing much better (at least until it encountered the next blockage, anyway):

We used all of the brash and logs to make a dead hedge…

… in an attempt to keep animals (mostly inquisitive dogs) from causing undue erosion of the stream’s banks.

A great start to what will undoubtedly be several years of work — we cleared about 10m,  but there’s about 1km that needs attention!