Week of Mon 16th Jun 2025

It was predicted to be a warm day, so I set out early to do the raft monitoring for the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. I hadn’t seen much of anything in the last few weeks, but today there was a probable water vole latrine on one of the rafts.

I haven’t seen water vole signs here for quite some time. The banks are covered in thick reeds, ideal habitat for them. Sadly there were no prints on the cartridge, but is was quite dry in the heat so not picking up too much.

In the afternoon, it was the first session of the week for Dursley Code Club. Harry returned from university to help out again, so it was nice to see him. This cohort are doing some amazing things with games, web pages and AI. There’s really nothing that phases them about getting the tech to do exactly what they want.

Early start to meet Susie at Lister Road for the monthly riverfly count. The river levels were strikingly low – literally not even up to ankles, but it seemed to be flowing faster which was odd.

The first thing we noticed was Blue-winged olives everywhere. More than gammarus which is incredible. So after a while we didn’t collect and just estimated the number. After a while though, we got the eye in for other species and found regular olives as well.

Overall a score of 8 which is perhaps a bit on the low side for this site, but still very respectable.

In the afternoon, the second Dursley Code Club of the week down at the library. Another new volunteer today, who is on a break from University. Today, the children were very quiet, just getting on with their projects, and not really too many questions.

The annual summer walk with Glorious Grasslands where we return to a site worked on over the winter habitat management season. The location today was a stunning SSSI site where we did a huge amount of gorse and scrub removal back in February.

It was nice to meet up with the team again – we are not used to seeing each other without winter clothing. Today was scorching weather, and no work involved, just a pleasant walk down to the bank to take a look at what’s growing.

It turned out to be Houndstongue which is a reasonably rare plant. Very large too and doesn’t look like a typical calcareous grassland herb.

Cerian was keeping tally of all the species, and although we haven’t done the final tally yet, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it’s over 100. Indicator species alone was pretty extensive.

In the afternoon, I attended my first meeting of the Cam & Dursley Creatives. This group has been going since 2019 apparently, but I only heard of them last week. It’s a six weekly gathering of various creative projects in the area, where they try and collaborate on getting projects delivered.

There’s a pot of money they call the “community chest” which anyone can make a bid for small amounts from, and if it’s approved by the group, it gets awarded and the results reported back. So I made a pitch for some AI funding for the Dursley Code Club which was received well enough for me to make an application for consideration next time.

In the evening, we held the Dursley Green Drinks at Kingshill House. Very well attended tonight, possibly due to the fabulous evening weather. But new people as well which is always nice to see. A good opportunity to catch up with others on various strands of projects I’ve been doing.

Made my way to the Royal Agriculture University this morning for the annual wardens shin-dig which Glorious Grasslands volunteers get invited to since we are also part of the Cotswold National Landscape.

There was an excellent roster of speakers this year. The archaeologist from the A417 road project gave an overview of the finds they are analysing as part of the statutory excavations of the work site. There were quite a few interesting things from every age since the Mesolithic period some 12,000 years ago.

We then had a talk from the Glos Raptor group about the great work done over the last number of years on tracking Goshawk, Hobby and Barn Owl breeding populations. Most of this was led by Anna, who featured on almost every slide.

The last session was a really interesting history of agriculture in the Cotswolds from one of the professors. We then had an excellent two course lunch in the dining halls of the college.

Rough Banks is a really stunning location, and it was interesting to hear how the volunteer team manage the grasslands over the winter with scrub removal and keeping the blackthorn back. The area is grazed with the belted galloways from the National Trust, which keeps the grasslands really species rich.

This is also a very rich site for devil’s-bit scabious, but so far no marsh fritillary butterflies have been recorded here.

Today is Volunteer Responsibility Amnesty Day. It occurs twice a year on the longest and shortest day and is a chance for volunteers to reflect on the list of things they do, and decide if some changes need to be made to prevent them burning out.

I volunteer with several organisations. It’s a really important way to get structure, identity and purpose after you stop work. But it can get overwhelming. There are just so many interesting things to get involved with, it’s easy to over commit.

I found out about this day last year and found it a great way to constantly review what I do and not to be afraid to drop something if necessary. This is my third review.

I made quite a few changes in my last update, so these have been bedding in over the last few months. I’ve spent a fair bit of time working on the launch of Discover Dursley , increasing the amount of riverfly activity across the community and getting the Glorious Grasslands survey app ready for the new season.

One interesting change has been how i do activities with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. They introduced a new booking system, and as a result I’ve been doing work parties across many different reserves. This is to explore other different opportunities when my Fromebridge projects gradually come to an end during this year.

I also ramped up my involvement with Stroud Wildlife Survey group and led two activities in the 2025 programme.

I decided to remove occasional items from this list because they don’t represent a big pull on my time, and I haven’t attended them for some time.

So, here is my current list of volunteering activities that reflect the above and other changes.

Volunteer organising

• Dursley Code Club
• Dursley Green Drinks/Hub
• Riverfly Monitoring at three sites
• Small mammal river monitoring
• Stroud Wildlife Survey Group
• Glorious Grasslands survey data
• The Artocalypse
• Discover Dursley Website
• Uley Trees and Meadows
• People & Money
• Retirement Zoom Group call

Volunteer participation

• Glorious Grasslands Habitat management/Seed Harvesting
• GWT Canal group
• Pockett’s Orchard work party
• SVP Canal group
• Discover Dursley
• SVP Tree group

This list, while quite long, is way more manageable than when I first did this exercise a year ago. Having this amnesty day in the calendar has really helped me keep control and perspective on my volunteering activities.