Today was my first time volunteering witht he BBOWT workparty at Hartslock in Oxfordshire.  I spend a lot of time on this reserve with my camera & so I figured that it was time I gave something back.

As I’d been out dancing at Totton the night before, I had to drive up from Woodlands, which took me about 1.5 hours.  As there had been quite a lot of rain recently, I decided no to risk the drive to the reserve & parked at Goring & Streatley station and walked the 1.5 miles to the reserve.

When I arrived, the workparty was already underway with two groups.  One group was mapping the location of the Monkey Orchids whilst the other was doing scrub clearance on the newly acquired plot.

I opted for mapping the orchids & learnt a lot about how to identify the various different species that grow on the site just from the leaves.

After a very heavy shower, Chris (the warden) decided that we’d best avoid the orchid slope, so we went across to help with the scrub clearance.

On the way over, we saw a fantastic show of Pasque Flowers, but unfortunately I only had a camera phone with me.

The Lady & Monkey orchids are growing well, though they are about 2 weeks behind where they were at this time last year.  There was no sign of the White Helleborines at all, but the Twayblades were also growing very well.

After the scrub clearance, we called it a day at about 14:00 & after some more tips on identifying the orchids from the leaves, I managed to get a lift back to the station & ate lunch, before driving home.

A thoroughly rewarding day.  I’m hoping that I shall be able to make this a regular thing.