April work day

Firstly apologies for the delay in adding this info to our blog.

We were very lucky with the weather this Easter Sunday. Although only a few 'friends' were able to turn up we had a very productive day litter picking. This was done in conjunction with a very informative 'wild flower walk' led by Benjamin Sanderson from Havering Council. Some of us actually visited parts of the park we hadn't seen before !

As well as this walk some of us walked around the ponds and also the meadow which had recently been cut by Havering Council. It will be interesting to see what appears now the long grass etc has been removed.

We were also pleased to see that Havering Council had improved the dipping platform by the damselfly pond. Access is now much easier and it is a lot bigger. This will make it much more accessible for the Essex Wildlife pond dipping 'expeditions'.

There was one thing that spoiled an otherwise perfect day in the park - and that was the smell of diesel fuel which occaisionally wafted up our nostrils. Apparently there had been a diesel spill in or around the Council Depot near to the visitor centre. This was caused by someone attempting to steal fuel and in the process spilling some. There are now signs up in the park warning people to keep pets etc out of the water/ditches. Unfortunately there were no signs on the day we were there and I understand that several people had complained about the smell and one little boy who fell in one of the ditches had an irritable rash for a while. His parents were unaware of the spillage and thought they had a fuel leak in their car on the way home. When they got home they realised it wasn't the car, it was their son! He's all ok now.