Crazy a-bat protecting the pennyroyal
9 GoodGymers made their way 6.8km to help the NatureBureau in Windsor and Maidenhead.
- Wednesday, 21st of June 2023
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Led by
Windsor and Maidenhead runner
She/her
We all know that GoodGym are huge fangs of puns and tonightโs task was no exception. After a nice run and walk GoodGym members arrived with their bat-packs ready to get muddy. We met our task owner, Kristina at Queenโs Eyot to learn about Pennyroyal a plant growing on a local SSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and in one of only three echo-location, location locations in the country. The Pennyroyal needs protecting and our task tonight was to pull up ragwort and thistles to enable it to continue to thrive. Kristina treated us to a fang-tastic lesson about bats before we got started. We learnt that there are 18 species of bats i(17 of them breeding) in the UK) and each one has a distinctive series of sound waves which can be used to track them. Fangs very much Kristina!
Acro-bat-ics were then needed to scale the gate at the entrance to the field (with approval from our task owner) but once we were inside there was certainly no winging it. After a quick lesson in plant identification (and what should definitely not be eaten) Georgeta got straight to work pulling up the younger ragwort. Emily, Jenni and Amy were not winging it with their huge collections of ragwort and Sophie, Claire, and Louise were definitely not hanging around either. Amanda and Mandy went to the different edges of the field and were helped by another volunteer Katie. We found a number of wild and bat-iful orchids along with thousands of damsel flies - simply stunning!
It was great to see how the work GoodGym did last year to clear the field has really helped reduce the weeds this summer so everyone can give themselves a huge bat on the back. GoodGym - we really are bat-ter together!
Report written by
Windsor and Maidenhead runner
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Led by Amanda
GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead TaskForce member
GoodGymers helping out
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Lead a walking group to the task
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Back marker
Make sure that no one is left behind
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A bat-tery of puns, a gate to climb over, sunshine, good company, an impressive distance covered, and visible progress thanks to GoodGym - sounds like a top session!! Well done everyone ๐๐๐๐
Great work everyone! Sounds & looks like a brilliant session ๐๐
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