James Chubb

Many hands make light work

A couple of weeks ago, I sang the praises of the volunteers who gather valuable information about wetland bird numbers in the monthly WeBS counting. Well, there’s a couple of dates for your diary on the horizon, so I’m going to talk about the valuable contribution volunteers make to the local patch in this column as well, and hope this encourages a few of you to come along and get stuck in!

If you are a kitesurfer, then one of your favourite places locally to practice your sport is on the estuary. Hopefully too, you are well aware of the voluntary exclusion area which is in effect between September and December each year. The exclusion zone was drawn up in collaboration with local kite surfers and covers the area to the East of the Imperial slipway, up towards an area known as Kings Lake.

This zone was selected for its importance to birds returning to the estuary for the winter, as beneath the water here, grows their favourite food, eelgrass. Everyone agreed that this would have a negligible impact on kitesurfer’s enjoyment of the estuary, and would have great benefits for the bird life too. In the first couple of seasons this voluntary code has worked well-ish. But hopefully next year we will be able to fully demark the zone with buoys, ensuring everyone knows where they should or shouldn’t be. If anyone can help me with buoyage on the estuary, please get in touch!

Sooner than that, there is another chance fro local volunteers to come out in force and help remove rubbish from the Local Nature Reserve. The District Council have teamed up with the Exe Estuary Partnership and other partners to organise a morning of beach cleaning at venues around the estuary, helping to remove strange things stuck in the mud.

Last year was a great success with lots of dross pulled clean. However a few winter months later and there’s stuff out there again, so if you’ve got a spare hour or so on May 3^rd, come along to the Imperial Rec from 11 o’clock and join us in bagging up the booty. The good news this year is that we won’t have to physically haul each piece across half a mile of soft sand, as Miles from Exmouth Mussels will be collecting all the bags of waste on his barge the following high tide – what co-operation!

In the past all sorts of local groups and organisations have turned out to help, from the Local Group of the Devon Wildlife Trust, Kitesurfers, local businesses, members of the Devon Wildfowlers and local Scouts and Guides – it is a genuine community effort. There’s as many reasons for getting involved as different people who turn up to help out. Some people are pleased to be able to help local wildlife, some people are happy to tidy up local rubbish and some people don’t like to stub their toes on sharp things when the fall off their surfboard!

Another group activity which will be taking place soon is a litter pick on The Maer,  on Tuesday 13^th May at 10 o’clock. This will be a much less strenuous activity, just come along to help remove the wind-blown rubbish which tends to collect in the longer grass of the nature reserve.

Litter pickers and gloves will be provided, along with collecting bags, and by the end of the morning we will hopefully have the place looking spotless for the coming summer period.  As well as this being a wonderful Local Nature Reserve which is frightfully underused, I have other motives for clearing the litter this spring.

Later in the summer I am hosting a busy bees morning at The Maer, a chance to get a personal introduction to the solitary bee species that call The Maer their home. No-one would want to crawl round on the sandy grass if it was covered in sweet wrappers and cans of drink.

There’s plenty of events going on through the summer period, so to pick up your copy of the Countryside Service events programme, pop into the Tourist Information Centre and ask for it by name.