Helping the Friends of Studham Common

Last January we decided to help the Friends of Studham Common with their annual Big Bash to do lots of planting, shrub clearance and other jobs necessary to maintain Studham Common(s) at their best for flora, fauna, and indeed visitors who want to see the great diversity of plant and animal life there.Their aim is to conserve, maintain, improve and promote Studham Common as a haven for wildlife and a place to be enjoyed and appreciated by all.

They have less intensive work days virtually every month and 13 bogtrotters decided to join in and help again in June.

Here we are unloading the tools ready to start clearing brambles and braken.


This is some of the bracken which grows so thick and tall it doesn't allow other grasses and plants to thrive.

Here are some of us strimming and clearing the offending bracken from one small area

Here is the area once we have cleared it all away so that the natural flora can flourish

Then Charles kindly took us for a walk round the common showing us what they were trying to achieve and pointing out some of the hundreds of species of plants there.

After a few hours graft the Friends kindly provided a good lunch for the workers out of the back of a car!


This is the glorious hay meadow which is part of the Studham common full of wild flowers.


This is one of the wild orchids amongst the other flowers to be found in June.


We even had 2 new members who had never seen us before, let alone been on a walk with us, who kindly decided it was a great idea to spend their Saturday morning helping, and of course they had to come to the pub in Studham with some of us for a quick drink (or in some cases several which lasted the rest of the afternoon!!) We are now looking forward to seeing Tony and Ester on a walk. If you want to learn more about the Friends of Studham Common you can visit www.foscomm.org/
There are also some more photos on their site.