March Marshians.

Our next big get together is planned for 16 March.

This was discussed at our lovely social event in the Castle tap.

There will be a variety of options for action.

They include the following but there might be some tweaks depending on things we can’t control.

At 08:30 a film maker (not a Marshian one!) will be by the marsh. He wants to make a film about the positive things going on in Reading and we are one of them! If you’d like to be in the film get there early. I just suggest people come along to say a few words. I’m also going to show how to plant willow cuttings and he will film that.

At 10:00 he may still have the camera rolling but he’ll just be filming what we always do, meet up, watch the wildlife, natter, introduce one another.

At 10:30 he will go and a small group of stompers will go on to a small part of the marsh under closer supervision to improve it but not disturb any nesting ducks. We’ll be keeping an eye on it in the preceding days, and might abandon it if we’re going to upset anyone. Ducks not landowners.

Another group will go off tree planting. We’re going to plant crack willow in a corner of the marsh to screen off a bit of the parcelfarce depot, and provide beaver food. And a lovely habitat. Each one of us could plant 25 cuttings easily. Bring some cardboard packaging to use as a mulch. Ideally cut into sort of squares sort of the size of a carpet tile.

We’ll also grab some sticks and we’ll head to the area. It’s about a 15 minute walk but we may well take longer than that. There’s lots to see on the way. There’s a lot of rubbish in that area too. So there’s an option to sort some of that out too, so there will also be bags and litter pickers. It’s more or less the same area and will be going on at the same time.

Other Marshians might set off to explore if any of the options above are not viable for whatever reason. The water level is dropping and it might be a great opportunity to get to know the wider marsh.