WORK PARTY - Saturday 24th June

That's right. It's the fourth Saturday instead of the usual third Sunday.

The satisfying task will be to check the takeover of our ancient woodland by the garden escape Snowberry.

Noakes Grove: Come any time after 10am and before 3pm.

Noakes Grove Open Day - great success

Over 250 people attended - everyone seemed to enjoy meeting the lambs, watching the puppet shows, taking part in many other children's activities and learning about the tree of life project to map the DNA of every British species of animal.

There was an excellent refreshment stall run mainly by the mothers of the "Wild Child" club members. A large number of other supporters ran all the events - we are very grateful to them and to the generosity of our visitors who donated over £500 to help us run Noakes Grove for a another year.

Above: discovering the Tree of Life project

Left : a full house for the puppet show

Photos: Peter Savic

After a spell grazing on private land in Sewards End, ten of our sheep are back at Kings Field. There are two lambs plus their mothers and two other ewes who we hope, will be part the breeding flock next year, plus Amy who has never yet managed to get pregnant.

All these sheep have full-length tails - we never dock the lambs tails, but there are also three "short-tails" who were amongst the first batch of ewes that came to Noakes Grove as "gimmers" fourteen years ago. These old girls have retired from breeding and will see out their days amongst their children, grandchldren and great-grandchildren. Apart from the "short tails" all our sheep were born in the Noakes Grove flock.

Kings Field is well worth a visit - as well as the sheep there are a number of other attractions. Near the stream, where it flows out of Kings Field, is a newly dug pond, it was filled with water pumped from the stream and is now settling down. It will be interesting to see which species of wildlife move in first.

Using the newly installed bridge near the pond, one can cross from the main sheep field to the cricket bat willow field and make a circuit of the reserve on the newly cut path.

We depend a great deal on donations from our supporters. Happily there is a good way you can make significant donations without it costing you a penny!

Easyfundraising.org.uk gets a small donation from many of the merchants on the internet for every buyer registered as supporting Walden Countryside. Then they pass the donations to us.

So far we have 23 registered supporters and they have already earned us £465.13

Won't you join them? Just click this link (or copy it into your web browser) for more details https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/organiccountrysidecic/

Grey Squirrel

exploring our Kestrel box

Fledgling Long-tailed Tit:

one of fifteen seen together

Female Holly Blue

the males don't have the black wing tips

It' not a bee

It's a hoverfly that mimics a bumble bee

It cannot sting and has only one pair of wings (like all true flies)

Volucella bombylans