It's been a busy summer of volunteering on our nature reserves! 

In the East of the county, our practical conservation volunteers have been busy with a range of tasks including path clearance, coppice fencing, step creation, invasive plant species control and spillway clearance. Volunteers spent time at Quarry Hanger installing a shiny new gate, carefully ensuring that it was perfectly level and drilling in new fittings to hold it together. This solid craftmanship will now ensure there will be no escaping cows whey they come to graze the chalk grassland soon!

Our new 171 hectare farm site in Farleigh, Elm Farm, received the attention of our volunteers who spent four hot and sunny days on site pulling ragwort from areas of the meadows ready to be cut for hay for our resident cattle during the winter months. Whilst ragwort is an important species for invertebrates, it is poisonous to livestock if it ends up in their hay and so needs to be removed in certain areas. Elm Farm will provide much-needed additional layback facility with grazing land and farmhouse facilities to house the animals when they aren't keeping vegetation under control on our reserves. This time spent by our volunteers getting the site up and ready for our livestock is a huge boost to our conservation grazing operations, helping to maintain biodiversity in globally important grasslands and heathlands. 

Additionally, at Graeme Hendry Woods, volunteers helped create a brand new butterfly transect within this beautiful woodland. They created steps using materials scavenged from within the woods, including sweet chestnut logs from a coppicing session last winter. Thanks to the work of our volunteers, we can now allow members of the public to walk our butterfly transect throughout summer and contribute to biological records.  

Over the past few months in Central Surrey, volunteers have been tackling path cutbacks, invasive plant species removal, infrastructure updates, scything, orchard tree work, reptile refugia installation, hazel coppicing and dead hedging across a range of grassland and woodland reserves. 

A number of productive volunteer days took place at Glebe Woods, including a Wild Youth weekend volunteer session, where volunteers replaced two sets of rotten steps each about 60 steps long, with handrails installed for better access to the site. We've since received lots of praise from members of the public who are reaping the benefits of this improved infrastructure. 

Volunteers have also been spending time at Puck's Oak Barn and Orchard, carrying out a variety of site maintenance jobs including repairing the main wooden signs, scything the whole orchard and doing tie downs on the fruit trees to make the fruit more accessible to the community.

Nature Restoration Trainee, Abi, led a chalk grassland flora ID session with volunteers at Betchworth Quarry using different types of identification resources, including FSC guides, apps and books. The group used 1x1m quadrats with a peak number of 23 species identified in a single square. They identified approximately 50 species including wild flowers, grasses and wood shrubs in total. 

Our volunteers in the West of the county have been busy clearing bracken, setting up grazing compartments, removing Himalayan balsam, pond maintenance and conducting various surveys including wildflowers, marsh club moss, sun dew, marsh gentian, royal fern and pond health. They also conducted a BioBlitz at Oldland's Copse, Eashing Fields, Snake's Field and Barnish Meadows.

This summer, 22 volunteers came together to carry out the annual marsh gentian survey across two key areas on Chobham Common. The marsh gentian is a rare plant of acidic bogs and wet heathlands whose bright blue, trumpet-shaped flowers appear from July to October, contrasting with the pinks and purples of the heath. This species is very rare, found in just three areas of England. 

Together, our volunteers counted 304 plants in total – 237 flowered and 67 unflowered – giving us an invaluable snapshot of the population. At the first site, volunteers recorded 133 plants, while the second site held a healthy 171. Excitingly, a new area was also found to support marsh gentians, and we are now working out the counts for this site. Although numbers were lower than in last year’s wetter season, the survey was a real success, providing vital data on how these striking blue flowers respond to changing weather conditions. A big thank you to everyone who gave their time and energy – your efforts make long-term monitoring and conservation of this rare species possible!

A huge thank you to all our volunteers who help us look after our network of nature reserves throughout Surrey!