Event 174: Reed Clearing at Forest Farm (23 September 2018)

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!