I hope you like the bramble clearance which is now finished for the winter Thanks to Peter Stafford and Geoffrey Littlejohns for their help. I was sent a photograph just after we’d finished this, showing a family visiting the brook in the 80s. Clearly a late spring day, it is very noticeable how devoid of overgrowth the stream was on its bank-sides and how much more attractive it was then for picnic parties. It must though, have contained a lower diversity of fauna and there are no plans to change the nature reserve to a soccer pitch! I have put the photo on the web site. If anyone else has photos of the meadow from times past, we would love to see them and, with your permission, publish them on the world wide web! Extensive, lying snow can be good news for voles for the barn owls will struggle to locate them as they live their lives beneath a protective, insulating and opaque screen. Up to 12 Fieldfares made short work of my remaining windfall apples during that period.