Troglodykes

It’s been a long weekend. A weekend of festivals.

The days are light from early till late. The weather is mild, and the marsh is coming alive.

Not that it was ever dead but for months some of it has been dormant or empty.

Flowers are appearing all over. Some spectacular and some more obscure

Dawn is worth getting up for. The days start with the dawn chorus and that’s quite an attraction. There were people wandering around in the silence of the night to experience the start of the day. Reading has a walks festival every year. This year it started before first light. The very first event was a marshian one. A dozen people went out onto the marsh in darkness and discovered the marsh as the sun rose.

Once our guests had gone home for their breakfast we gathered for our inaugural bird race.

We split into teams of three with a very simple plan. Find as many birds in 2 hours as you can. We mixed teams up so each had a sharp eyed, a sharp eared and a sharp expert in each.

At the signal to start the race nobody moved. After a few minutes convinced that each team had had all the birds available from where they stood they drifted away to scout the area for more.

One team emerged victorious by a feather.

In those two hours 55 different species of bird were found

So we had a laugh, learnt a lot and we’ll be doing it again for sure.

The next day was very different.

We went underground. Well, under the dual carriageway. This is where the marsh trickles away. The culvert is full of debris that has been washed out of the marsh. Rearranged that debris could form a little weir. This required some special people, ones capable of working in confined spaces.

We shovelled some of the dirt around

And built our very first Troglodyke.

Of course holding back some more water is going to raise the level in the marsh. Watermint bridge would be under water.

So we raised it and then tested it.

It is not only higher but can carry 6 people at a time.

In between all of that we had time to let our hair down with a well earned evening of wine music and dance. Reading has another festival, the Are You Listening festival. We could be found all over town as the rhythms pounded out.

We had a lot to pack into a couple of days and we managed it.

It was a great weekend buoyed up by the results of the local election.

Reading has bucked the trend and has become a town proud of its cultural heritage and inclusivity. Somewhere where Marshians can feel right at home. And it looks like the marsh might stay wet all year round.