Rejuvenating the Wildflower Meadow

You may have noticed slightly less colour in the wildflower meadow over the last couple of years, as grasses and undesirable species like stinging nettles have started to establish. We have decided that the best way to deal with this will be to clear the meadow and resow it. We had hoped that this would happen this spring, however the wet weather put  a stop to that, so we are now planning on undertaking the work in September, ready for flowers to come out next year. There will still be plenty of  wildflowers and associated biodiversity this year, but you … ...read the rest

Easter Monday Litter Picking

Despite the rain there was a great turn out for our Easter Monday litter pick. Unfortunately with the high river flows, we had to give our river a wide berth. However, a great haul of discarded treasures was collected and we can all be satisfied to leave another of our green spaces spick and span! 🙂

The recovered football was donated to an excited new owner! … ...read the rest

August Kick Sample

On Sunday we undertook our regular river bug surveys. Getting this monthly snapshot of the bug diversity in the river gives us a really good insight into the health of the river each month; as well as the longer term water quality and flow trend. The scores this week were good for the time of ye.ar, possibly due to the high rainfall we’ve been experiencing.

We hope you enjoy the river now that it’s looking a bit more like summer out there! 😎

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Litter picking 17th June

Although the committee has continued to beaver away to improve our river, it had been a little while since we last organised a community activity. To get the ball rolling we held a litter pick, sweeping along the river banks, from the weir by the B3081 to Hawkers Bridge by the supermarkets. There were some great finds from our litter pick. Treasures found included, but were not limited to: beer bottles (whole), beer bottles (broken), a lovely matching shoes and cap combination, and approximately 1 million disposable vapes. However, the star find was definitely the trolley under hawkers bridge. Thank … ...read the rest

Elements

Wincanton Climate Fair 27th May 2023

From 10am – 2pm, The Balsam Centre in Wincanton is hosting a climate fair to promote wellbeing and offer practical information, advice, workshops, idea sharing and group start-ups to offer solutions to allow everyone to engage and make a difference to the environment and climate emergency. We believe through community action we can all do our bit to change our future.

There will be information and advice stands, films, art, workshops for adults and children, networking opportunities, start-up & sign up boards, toolkits and more…. WHAT’S ON | elementsclimate

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Recognition for C.A.T.C.H at national conference

CATCH was recently recognised for our motivation and diligent monitoring of the River Cale. Our robust dataset and observations have now caught the attention of both the water company and the environmental regulator and we’re looking forward to working hard with both to keep on transforming Cale habitat for the better! Some slides and pictures from the presentation are below.

As a group, we monitor the population of ‘macroinvertebrates’ (bugs) in the River Cale in Wincanton. The variation in the types, diversity and relative abundances of these bugs gives us a very accurate picture of the health of our river … ...read the rest