Lynchmere Common - Scraping the pond

Winter is our busiest season on the commons as we carry out much of the heavy management work whilst the animals and plantlife are dormant or absent for the winter.

During the week we have been scraping one of our ponds that had become silted up and choked up with weed.

A couple of years ago we scraped the adjacent pond and the improvement has been clear. A recent survey found rare plants such as bog pimpernel starting to return.



While I like to use hand tools digging the pond out by hand would have been a little too challenging. But luckily we know a 'man who can'.


Robin always has a few more toys in his box than I do (or so it seems). So he came in for 2 days to help us out and scrape the pond, part of the ditch feeding it and restore the nearby bridlepath with his excellent mini-digger under the expert guidance of Hilary our pond warden.



It might seem a brutal approach but I am told that the pond life will benefit come the spring.

Now if only we could teach all the dogs not to run through it (and people not to throw in things) then it would be a perfect new home for all things amphibious or aquatic.