Yesterday afternoon saw us return to Boundary Brook Nature Park for more bramble digging and log moving. After our last session one of the Nature Park's neighbours queried if the badgers were venturing over towards the surrounding houses. But no, that's not signs of badgers digging, it's evidence that GoodGymers are encroaching closer and closer to residential areas these days. Boundary Brook Nature Park is excellent GoodGym habitat. (Easy to mistake us for badgers with our ever-increasing sprinkling of black and white 50 Good Deed Tshirts.)

We spent a couple of hours digging brambles out of the wildflower meadow and mound, chattering about podcasts, dates, inter-college cat feuds and everything inbetween. In a twist on the "leaf or litter" game we had "stone or potato" (PSA - it's always a stone). With blue sky above and a robin flitting around it was wholesome as it comes.

Thomas took the tree-care job, disappearing off into the woods with saw in hand. Despite the fact that for most of the session we could find no sign of him except for a couple of tools abandoned beside the path, the tree team were not whisked away by evil spirits or lost Hansel & - style. Under Pete's direction they moved branches and logs over to where the bird hide is being built and learnt how to safely fell a small tree.

Further information on Boundary Brook Nature Park can be found here.

The return of the Lazy Dogs!

Yesterday afternoon we descended on Boundary Brook Nature Park for a bramble up-rooting session. Boundary Brook is a gorgeous hidden corner of Oxford between the Iffley and Cowley Roads. We've helped out there pretty regularly over the last year or so, laying the gravel path, clearing bramble roots in other areas of the nature reserve, and reprofiling the pond. On Saturday afternoon our task was to prepare the ground for the next project; to build a temporary bird hide from green wood taken from around the nature reserve (a hidden spot for humans to observe birds from, not somewhere for birds to hide out). The hide will go up in the spring, but first the area needed to be de-brambled. The bird hide will be tucked on the edge of a copse with a grassland butterfly meadow in front. The brambles had been chopped down, but as regular GoodGymers will know, the roots can be extensive, and brambles are tenacious and will keep returning unless the roots are dug out.

The tool of choice for bramble roots is the Lazy Dog; expertly modelled in the photos by GoodGym Hero Rachael. 2 lazy dogs between 15 doesn't go far, so spades and forks were also added to the mix and we got to work digging out the knarly roots from all over the meadow, frog spotting as we went.
Team 2 took on the heavy lifting task of moving the green wood from around other parts of the Nature Reserve to the spot where the Bird Hide will be built. 2 or 3 GoodGymers to a log we meandered to and fro along 'our' gravel path getting a surprisingly good weight lifting work out. Anyone else got slightly sore shoulders this morning?!

Swipe through the pictures to see the Bird Hide design. It will be a self-supporting structure made from mostly Ash wood from the Nature Park, with a turf roof and viewing windows at different levels so that everyone from toddlers to the tallest adults can use it to observe the birds.

You can join Oxford Urban Wildlife Group for £5 per year and have unlimited access to Boundary Brook Nature Park. All the details are here.

As discussed while carrying logs: follow @OxThamesSewage on Twitter for alerts when sewage is being released into the Thames.

Welcome Andreea and Alex - lovely to meet you both.