Castle Point Wildlife Group |
Some of our Events and activities
Not so much one of our activities but we had a request from someone asking if they could come in to the woods with an elevating platform to shoot some video shots up above the tree canopy. We got agreement from the Council and on Saturday 30th July 2011 the team duly arrived!
Having set up they did their shots then allowed us to go up to take some pictures and see the woods from a different angle! Having no head for heights I declined but my wife jumped at the chance and was away. So below are some shots of the wood from above!
On 18th July 2010 we once again attended the annual Castle Point Show held at Waterside Farm on Canvey. Our aim was to increse awareness of the group within Castle Point and to provide advice on wildlife and talk about our work in the woods of the area. It was a great day with many people coming to see the stand and displays. Some pictures of the day are shown below.
On Saturday 22nd May 2010, we (Neal Warren, Pam Warren and David Whitewood) attended the joint RSPB / Canvey Council wildlife event at the new RSPB reserve on Canvey Island to promote our work.
The event was a great day and was supported by Mike Dilger (of BBC One Show and Springwatch fame).
We are often supported by groups from the Community to complete some bigger projects within the woods. In April 2010, a group of employees from Fords joined us to undertake a project to improve one of the entrances to West Wood at Hedge Lane. The group built a new bridge across the stream and also replaced the entrance gate and fence as well as clearing the area of rubbish. We would like to say a big thank you to those who came along from Fords and worked with us. Some pictures are shown below of the before and after, as well as some of the 'workers' involved.
One of our aims is to see the woods support local activities as well as being a local amenity. We were recently approached by a local Company who were looking for some oak planks to build a 3 metre long dining table for a local customer. We had 2 oaks that were felled near the edge of West Wood last year, which when they saw them were ideal.
To save a lot of transport and cost a local contractor was found who operates a mobile sawmill, and he came in to the woods to saw the trees up for planks to allow the table to be built. In addition to planks some of the wood was cut in to beams for use in fireplace building as well as lengths to be used for furniture making (chairs etc).
Pictures were taken of the operation and are shown below, we hope to be able to add more pictures showing the table as it gets built.
Truly a local project using local wood for quality furniture as it would have been done in the past.
In addition we were able to get some lengths of oak cut to form seats which we will soon install within both West Wood and also in North Benfleet Hall Wood.
Below you can see some of the benches made from some of the planks and now in place in West Wood.
