Copy
Volunteers wanted for hedgelaying session, Sunday Jan 29th, 10.30am - 3.00pm. See below for details


Be a Friend to Ludwell Valley Park

 

A quick reminder that  you can now take a small step to help protect and improve the amazing Ludwell Valley Park by becoming a Ludwell Life 'Friend'. The more people become Friends, the more we can achieve. There is so much that could be done to make Ludwell Valley Park a place that is better for people and for wildlife. From conservation projects, to involving local people through history, wildlife and well being activities, improving signing, paths and information - we can do it with more people and by applying for funding and working in partnership with the city council, the Devon Wildlife Trust and others.
Having a Friends scheme is an important way to not only raise some funds, but also to show how many people care about Ludwell Valley Park. Find out more  here

 

Hedgelaying task,  Sunday January 29th
10.30am - 3.30pm

Unlike the other conservation work we have done so far, this task requires 10 volunteers who can commit to coming along for a longer, rather more physically demanding session. You don't have to know how to lay hedges, but you do have to feel happy about working -with breaks - from 10.30 through to around 3.00pm, , wielding cutting tools and having a reasonable level of strength.

We really hope that Ludwell Life supporters can help meet this request, either themselves or by talking friends /family into a really worthwhile and enjoyable session that will maintain the hedges of Ludwell Valley Park. If you want to be one of the ten volunteers, or want to know more,  please email LudwellLife@gmail.com, or ring 0797 4414613.


Dogs and winter birds

There are a few fields in Ludwell that are planted with crops and wildflowers that provide critical winter food for some important bird species. These fields should all have a clear sign asking dog walkers to keep their dogs on lead so they don't disturb the birds that are likely to be feeding on the ground in the fields.  We have noticed that several of the notices are missing and even where they are in place, many dog walkers are ignoring the request. This is quite likely to be ignorance ie they haven't noticed or understood why they are being asked to walk around the edges of them with their dogs with them. So this is a plea to all dog walkers to look out for these signs, and if you see dogs off lead in the fields with this sign, a polite explanation of why keeping the dogs out of the field would be so helpful to wildlife will hopefully do the trick with at least some dog walkers, many of whom are also wildlife enthusiasts.

 

Conservation task news

As many of you already know, all of Ludwell Valley Park's public fields will be transferred to the management of Devon Wildlife Trust from sometime this year, probably early summer.  In the meantime, we hope to run a further series of conservation tasks and events, (starting with the hedge laying session -see above), in partnership with Exeter City Council.  These are still at the planning stage as we have to be certain that Ludwell Life can provide a lead from  for each task. If you are interested in being a possible conservation task lead (that just means guaranteeing you will turn up on the day, be nice to people who turn up to make them feel comfortable and be the person people phone on the day if they are lost etc), then do please get in touch at LudwellLife@gmail.com. The more reliable volunteers we have, the more we can get done. We will provide more information about these tasks once we have a lead for each one.

At each task so far, we have attracted a few more people than the one before, so let's see if in 2017, we can build a really solid 'Ludwell Life Crew'  - a conservation volunteer task force to be proud of and that will be a really valuable aid to Devon Wildlife Trust's ambitions to increase the wildlife in Ludwell Valley. We are shortly going to apply for a grant to cover buying equipment to help with our tasks, so keep fingers crossed!

However, for now, here are some further tasks that we are hopeful will go ahead....We will keep you updated via this newsletter, our Facebook page, website and Twitter.
 

29th January : hedge laying. (Max 10 people who can definitely commit)

26th February:Scrub clearance on some of our flower-rich meadows.

26th March : Footpath maintenance – improving some of our more muddy footpaths.

Early or mid April : Himalayan Balsam removal from Panny

30th April :Installing new kissing-gate to replace old one.

Early May : Himalayan Balsam removal from Panny

21st May, Sun   Monitoring of our spring birds.

25th June, Sunday      Cutting back overgrown footpaths / litter picking of footpaths.


Pynes Hill  & Peninsula Park business contacts?


This is a second call out as we didn't get any reply last time....
Do you work at, or know someone who works at either of the large business parks that border Ludwell Valley - Pynes Hill or Peninsula Park? Ludwell Life wants to start developing relationships with companies on these business parks, with a view to getting more people who work there engaged in enjoying and helping to protect and improve the park.  We have lots of ideas that we think will be of interest to the companies, who are all looking at ways to improve staff wellbeing and morale.
If you are interested in talking to us about this, please get in touch at LudwellLife@gmail.com

.
Copyright © 2017 Ludwell Life, All rights reserved.