VOLUNTEERS at Tice’s Meadow Nature Reserve in Badshot Lea are celebrating the award of a £2,000 grant from Postcode Local Trust, a grant-giving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, to purchase new tools and equipment.

The generous award will enable volunteers to purchase a whole suite of new hand tools, as well as a brush-cutter and other specialist tools for habitat management and conservation work parties, and the appropriate personal protective equipment.

Volunteers currently have to borrow, or supply their own, tools for use on site. Having a suite of their own tools will allow the group to expand their conservation activities and enable greater numbers of new volunteers to join in. New protective equipment will also enable them to continue to work safely on site.

Richard Horton, chairman of the Tice’s Meadow Bird Group, said: “Our volunteers will really benefit from the new tools and equipment – enabling us to work on more projects and accommodate more new volunteers. We have a great team at Tice’s Meadow and are working on some really exciting projects.

“We are very grateful to the Postcode Local Trust and the players of People’s Postcode Lottery for their generous support.”

The Tice’s Meadow Bird Group, in partnership with the Surrey Bat Group, Farnham Town Council (FTC) and the Blackwater Valley Countryside Trust, has also announced details of a new project to provide a suite of new homes for bats in the Badshot Lea area.

The project has been funded by generous grants of £500 from FTC’s Community Grants Scheme, £500 from the Blackwater Valley Countryside Trust’s Small Grants Scheme, and £1,000 from the Surrey Bat Group.

Thirty new bat boxes have been bought and erected in suitable locations at the nature reserve. The boxes are state-of-the-art designs in woodcrete – a mixture of wood, clay and concrete – to stop leaks, warping or cracks, and should last for 25 years.

The existing bat cave, a re-used concrete conveyor belt base on an island in a lake, will also be upgraded with more boxes and crevices for bats.

Annual surveys of bat numbers on site will be conducted by licensed surveyors, and the results used to inform the habitat management efforts on the nature reserve. Night-time bat walks will also be organised for members of the local community to enjoy the bats living on their doorstep.

Five species of bat have been recorded at Tice’s Meadow, with common pipistrelles and noctules a regular sight on warm evenings, along with soprano pipistrelles and daubentons. Brown long-eared bats were found to be using the bat cave as a winter hibernation site for the first time this year.

There are 18 species of bat in the UK, with 17 known to breed here. Bats are considered an ‘indicator species’, meaning their population trends can indicate changes to biodiversity or habitat condition. Bats are also an important natural pest control, feasting on mosquitoes and crop-damaging insects each night.

Bats, and their roosts, are legally protected in the UK and so all work will be conducted by suitably trained and licensed personnel.

Richard added: “This wonderful project is the beginning of a great partnership between ourselves, the Surrey Bat Group and the Blackwater Valley Countryside Trust, with generous financial assistance from Farnham Town Council. We are so grateful to our generous funders for making this project a reality, and helping provide so many new homes for bats on our nature reserve”.

The nature reserve is on the site of the former Farnham Quarry and is widely considered to be one of the best inland sites to watch birds in the south-east of England, with 192 species of bird having been recorded there over recent years. It is also a key local site for many species of butterflies, dragonflies, reptiles and amphibians, including many locally scarce and endangered species.

Volunteers help manage the nature reserve and spent more than 2,000 hours on site in 2017 alone.

For more information about Tice’s Meadow Nature Reserve, including details of volunteering opportunities, head to www.ticesmeadow.org.