Childwall Woods and Fields depends on volunteers!
As we outline in Looking After Childwall Woods and Fields the Diggers volunteer group plays a vital role in the week to week management of the nature reserve, and the Friends group’s charity trustees are also volunteers.
Volunteering helps nature, the local community – and the volunteer.
Every hour spent caring for the reserve helps create better places for plants, fungi and wildlife — while giving people the chance to get outdoors, learn new skills and connect with nature.
Research shows volunteering helps:
Mental wellbeing
Nature volunteering has been linked with improvements in mental wellbeing, especially in people starting with poorer mental health.
Time spent connecting with nature can help reduce stress and increase wellbeing.
Volunteering in nature reserves can improve attention, mood and creative thinking.
Physical fitness
Conservation tasks such as habitat management and path maintenance can provide a useful source of physical activity.
The benefits can be particularly significant for people starting with lower levels of physical or mental wellbeing.
Social contacts
Volunteering brings people together in a shared purpose and can help tackle social isolation. You meet and work alongside some interesting people.
You can also learn new skills, build confidence and develop supportive community connections.
This experience may particularly benefit you if you’re a job seeker.
Volunteers needed!
There are 2 main activities where we need help – the Diggers team who do the weekly practical conservation work, and specialist ecological surveys. More on these below.
The Diggers volunteers
Our weekly ‘Diggers’ group currently meets from 1- 3pm on Tuesdays. We may meet at different locations depending on the work planned, but usually at the lock-up by the Childwall Lane entrance.
If you would like to be added to our list of volunteers please contact Ian Headey, our volunteer coordinator, on 07940 709699 or iheadey202@virginmedia.com and you will be sent details of planned Digger activities on the Diggers WhatsApp group, with details of where we are meeting and weather updates.
There are opportunities to do practical conservation work almost every week of the year (depending on the weather!).
In the summer we have also been doing additional voluntary work in the evening and previously we have also done weekend community volunteer events (see here) but these are both currently on hold.
What the Diggers do:
Here are some recent examples of the work done by the Diggers:
Access work clearing and maintaining paths to enable safe public access.
Clearing invasive species such as rhododendron and Himalayan balsam which reduce biodiversity.
Pond maintenance – our newest addition to the reserve’s habitats and vital for biodiversity.
Controlling saplings & clearing fallen trees for safety.
Maintaining meadows as a home for orchids and wildflowers.
Litter picking.
Coppicing willow and making a living willow tunnel.
Our yearly programme can look like this:
In winter we may clear invasive rhododendron, or create ‘dead hedges’ along paths to protect our valuable areas of precious bluebells.
In spring, we may plant wildflowers or manage hedgerows.
Summer sees us keeping the paths open and accessible, weeding the new orchard or clearing areas of invasive Himalayan balsam.
This work clearance work continues in the autumn.
Find out more about the work of the Diggers here Looking After Childwall Woods and Fields.
There is always plenty to do and your help and involvement would be very welcome! Please get in touch if you would like to try volunteering with the Diggers.
The Diggers make a real difference to CWF. Thank you to our Diggers!
Naturalists needed!
A new area for volunteering we are keen to encourage is to recruit more people with particular interests in nature.
A reserve such as this in a city suburb is unusual and offers an interesting and convenient place to visit. It’s local, there’s no need to travel miles to find a range of habitats, and field visits can be done in your free time to suit your personal availability.
We are about to begin a project to develop a new management plan for the Childwall Woods and Fields reserve, so site surveying & monitoring are about to become even more important. You could be part of this, building your own experience and contributing to nature regeneration.
Our trustees currently include people with a range of interests in different aspects of nature: birds, ponds, trees, fungi, plants and insects. And we have an active group of bird watchers who share their sightings via a WhatsApp group. Recently we have done a small mammal survey using footprint tunnels (see Mammals).
At present we use iNaturalist to record our sightings and when verified, these are passed on to Merseyside Biobank and then added to iRecord, a national database. This is citizen science at work.
One project we have in mind but have not yet been able to develop is with bird nest boxes. We have a dozen or so bird boxes located in one mature woodland area and many more boxes made and awaiting installation in other areas of the reserve. These need to be put up, monitored and maintained. Interested?
We are always open to offers of help, particularly If you have a particular interest and skills as a naturalist. If you have the time and skills to offer, or perhaps have a project in mind, please do get in touch.
Naturalists, can you help us? And can we help you?