Breaking ground at Sandwell Valley

The day has finally arrived (we can hardly contain our excitement), we are so happy to announce to the world that building work on your new RSPB visitor centre has begun. There are diggers on site and ground has been broken.

When I first saw the big blue digger chugging its way up the Sandwell Valley driveway last week it hit me for the first time properly, like a Peregrine Falcon smacking into its prey in mid-air. Crash!! 

This time next year we will be in our swanky new visitor centre!! Not that I haven’t enjoyed working from our temporary SPA in the interim period. (that’s SPA for ‘semi-permanent accommodation’, not the type of SPA where you leave feeling revitalised, pampered an refreshed).

It was only when I walked up to the construction site and saw the digger pulling down the remnants of the old building that my excitement was tinged with sadness. The old building had stood for 25 years and, from what I have heard, gave birth to thousands of happy memories. Hundreds of welly-clad school children piled through those doors on school trips that might have sparked a lifetime of love for nature.  It is so fantastic, like a phoenix from the flames; the new building will rise from the same footprint as the old building over the next 6 months.

We absolutely could not do this without support, and it has come in many different forms over the past 4 years. It is thanks to the staff and volunteers at RSPB Sandwell Valley who, after the fire, continued to work from home. We kept going because of those volunteers, who continued to turn up, open the hide, lead guided walks and do wildlife surveys, despite no facilities on site. It is the support of the local community also, who carried on visiting and supporting our work. It is also because of all those thousands of RSPB members that I am writing this today. And of course, thank you to the funders who, like us, recognised that Sandwell Valley is a really special place for people and wildlife; they dug deep and helped make the dream of a new visitor centre a reality.

The Breathing New Life into Sandwell Valley project has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Ibstock Cory Environmental Trust, Edward and Dorothy Cadbury Trust and other Charitable Trusts.

Our partnerships don’t stop there; I have to mention the actual people on the ground too. We are pleased to be working with Harpers construction and Katar consulting throughout out the rebuild.

Now then, you’ll be expecting regular updates I suppose? Look no further than this blog, because that’s precisely what you’re going to get.

So we've been hit by a hurricane...

So we’ve been hit by a hurricane... well the tail-end of one, how did you find it? I mean as far as bad weather went, I can say we’ve seen worse, but I’m rather grateful for our tail-end of the storm as it seems to be causing few travel disruptions and damages caused by its such strong winds.

The beautiful sunrise from the reserve this morning

I should have guessed that, after writing this, within minutes the gails started, it looked like storm force 10 from the office window as all the leaves rushed down the street. Then it began to hail and some really unfortunate news stories about issues caused by the weather popped up on BBC news. Typical, next time I’ll keep my mouth shut!

Anyway, the reserve is defiantly more covered in leaves now than it was a couple of days ago and they leave incredible golden dusting! As I’m writing this I’m looking out the window at the trees half bent over by the wind and a tiny, juvenile grey squirrel is all hunched over with it’s tail bent round itself to shelter from the wind. My, it does look a little cold up there and here’s me in a nice toasty office.

The Dewy Grass Caught the Sunlight Wonderfully

My nature walk round the reserve was a rather different one this week, more of a well-paced amble round the reserve. I even got to chat to Trevor, one of our wonderful wildlife garden volunteers, who was struggling to find a suitable place to plant an apple tree that had been rescued by the builders from the demolition area. Mrs (or Mr) Robin was also there to greet me in the wildflower garden, searching for worms in an area I presume Trevor had just been digging.

I took a different route around the reserve today, heading along the public bridle path that backs onto the nature reserve, just near the construction site. Here I decided to stop, as I had seen a few small brown birds flitting between the trees. Sure enough within a couple of minutes birdlife returned to the hedgerows and I was surrounded by a mixture of songs, including a robin and also a chiffchaff, who normally fly back to their wintering grounds in late August to September so this was a surprise. Then I was greeted by a mysterious bird, it had a blackcap, so I initially thought it must be a blackcap, but it didn’t look like ones I had seen previously, so I jotted down its description, with black markings on its flanks. As always it was too up in the trees and too fast for me to get a photo; as my Dad has always told me and as the saying goes… “never work with children or animals”… they never stay still long enough. When I got back to the office I looked in the book... it was a female bullfinch! 

The Gills of the Un-identified Mushroom

The light was wonderful on my walk and caught the dewy grass and cobwebs beautifully down in Kingfisher Corner. I also managed to find a mushroom!!! Noted someone had already found it for me but had dropped it on the ground. When I came to look in my ID book I realise quite how diverse and complicated mushrooms and their identification is. If anyone has a clue on what this mushroom may be please post below. I shall have to spend my extremely long coach journey tomorrow reading up on fungi!

The Un-identified Mushroom

Jazz

Free Wild Art Event- What's happening there...?

My creativity ran 'wild' with some leaves earlier today

Nature is incredible, it’s intricate designs and array of colours decorate the world year round. Here at Sandwell we have a large green space that is accessible to all, all year round, every day of the week and we want you to have the chance to see what natural art you can make from nature.

On Monday 26^th October we are holding a FREE EVENT! All are welcome, bring your friends, family and neighbours along to get out of the house, out into nature and create some wild art.

Come for a walk, bring a picnic and make the most of the free hands on activities that we will have going on. Help decorate our reserve using nature and share your ideas for new art work that we will be developing to be placed around the reserve.

Help home those little people and fairies around the reserve and your gardens and make hidden houses and furniture out of natural materials. Create nature masks out of the wonderful autumnal leaves that you find all over at this time of year and let your creative juices run riot decorating wildlife biscuits.

Watch a local artist at work as he sculpts woodwork for the reserve. Robot will be creating artwork to be placed on the reserve over the coming months and will be joining us to give you the chance to try your hand at woodcarving.

We would love to hear your thoughts about what art work you might like to see on the reserve, so come along and put your ideas into our suggestion box.

Image by Olivia Betts (rspb-images.com)

This is a free event for all ages, with loads of different practical activities to get involved in.

We can’t wait to see you there and let our creativity run wild!

Jazz

p.s. Don't forget to check out our Facebook page (RSPB Birmingham, Black Country & Warwickshire) to be kept up-to-date with whats going on at RSPB Sandwell Valley. 

Working together to give nature a home

What season at Sandwell?

Storytelling corner

Autumn is upon us. 

I was going to attempt my fortnightly walk yesterday but as, I am sure, you are well aware it was rather autumnal and wet. After cycling in and getting very cold, I decided to go for my wildlife walk today; yet another autumnal and rainy day. Instead, I embraced the rain, put on the enormous RSPB rain jacket and trundled out in my wellies to see what I could find.

Only a handful of plants are flowering now and, although it’s very invasive and I shouldn’t morally admire it, the flowers of the bind weed, funnel shaped and glowing white, did decorate the hedgerow quite elegantly. The hawthorn trees were all draped with glossy red berries, ready to feed the birds for the winter. After passing through kingfisher corner I headed down towards the marsh screen and came across the autumnal delight that has covered storytelling corner. While many of the trees still have green and golden leaves on, many have already fallen and have decorated the ground with a mix of reds, browns and yellow. It’s like a treasure trove of colour! I quite enjoyed looking at the contrast between the golden floor and the green leaved trees.

Broom

The paths towards the marsh screen are lined sporadically with broom, well, what I thought to be broom (see picture). A member of the pea family and a plant that I had help ID’ing some 3 years ago at university; but when trying to decide if it was broom I remembered someone mentioning something called mare’s-tail, so I thought I ought to check to make sure.... It was defiantly not mare’s-tail, but at least I now know that. Mare’s-tail is found in some slow running streams and lakes and it’s thin and pointy leaves come out of the stem in ‘whorls’ (three or more leaves arising from the stem at the same point).

oxeye daisy

In the garden I managed to find a few more plants in bloom, even a couple of oxeye daisies, muddied by the rain, were giving it a go. Some red clovers and red campion (which is a good one to spot most of the year round) were brightening up the boarders.

The walkway down to the hide is also looking rather spectacular, with still enough leaves on the trees to make it feel enclosed, the path is rather atmospheric, lined with the trees summer creations and full of colour.

I was hoping to find some mushrooms to ID this week but unfortunately failed. However next time I shall attempt a more intense fungi foray. 

I hope you enjoy your autumn walks as much as I do. Please post your findings and interesting points on here as I it may teach me a thing or two about what I might find out there!

Jazz

The Bridge gets a Face Lift

Hi!!

Nadia here! 

Before

We have wonderful news. The railway bridge at the entrance to the reserve is getting a facelift. For those of you that don’t know; there is a railway bridge just on the edge of the nature reserve, and lets just say, it doesn’t win any prizes for it’s looks. If the engineer that designed this particular bridge is reading this, I am sorry, but being from the north east, you have the likes of the Tyne bridge to compete with - an engineering triumph.

After & The fantastic Network Rail team

We are working with local schools to design a mural inspired by nature. An artist is going to come and work with the school groups to create something a bit special. We can’t wait. But before we could put the overalls on and get out the rollers I needed to ask for permission. To my delight, Network Rail were more than happy for us to paint the bridge, and not only that, they agreed to come along and give it an undercoat first.

Last week staff from one of the Network Rail offices descended on the reserve in a glow of orange and within minutes the brushes were out and they were hard at work. We were very impressed with the speed and efficiency in which they got the job done; and a cracking job they did too. Of course we supplied the team with cake and biscuits and a cup of tea, it was the least we could do.

We are incredibly grateful for this, so THANK YOU Network Rail for helping us make this special nature reserve just that little bit more beautiful.

The mural is not finished yet, but i’ll be sure to let you know when it is.

Working in partnership to give nature a home

The Big Challenge

                                             

On the weekend 28^th/29^th September we were joined by over 100 students taking part in the NCS Challenge.

NCS http://www.ncsthechallenge.org/ is a project set up in 2009 to bring lots of 15- 17 year olds together and challenge them to take part in lots of new experiences.

The task and activities they take part in help them to discover and build on new skills, such as communication, working within a team, public speaking, practical tasks, helping others and  much more. They graduate from the programme and the experiences they gain are now recognised by many employers and universities.

So over the weekend, they visited us at Sandwell, and our wonderful staff and volunteers at the RSPB provided them with a taste of working outdoors on a nature reserve.

Armed with rakes, trowels, hoes and gloves they set off with Warden Kate and Visitor & Promotions Officer Chris.

After being fueled up with sugar, caffeine and Chris’s pep-talk we headed out onto the reserve in 2 teams.

Team 1 went and did essential path maintenance on our busy footpath. They cleared edges, trimmed back willows, and neatened the place up to make it inviting for our visitors.

Team 2 ventured into the big meadow to rake up the cut grass. This is an important job as we cut the meadow every year and remove the cuttings to allow a diverse range of plants to grow. If the cut grass was left, it would create a ‘thatch’ and block light for most species to germinate. We did a great job, work hard (well, most of us did!) and cleared 1/3 of the meadow (about half an acre)

They all worked hard, as you can see from the pictures, and with the beautiful sunshine, everyone enjoyed working out in the fresh air....though there were a few screams about spiders!!

Alex