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It has been a busy summer in the Glen and Friends of Nevis volunteers have been giving their time to ensure that it is still looking good, both for visitors and biodiversity. This has included several Monday Morning Litter Picks, clearing up after busy weekends in the lower Glen, bracken bashing in the Nevis Landscape Partnership Future Forests tree enclosures at Polldubh and removing invasive American Skunk Cabbage from the site of the Old Studio at Achriabhach. On the latter event we were also glad to have the support of Matt Bradley and Ali Tait from the Highland Council Ranger Team. More recently the Nevis Landscape Partnership seasonal ranger team have organised some engagement events in the Glen including a herbal forage led by Claire Holohan, author of Scotland's Wild Medicine and a Fabulous Fungi Foray with Liz Holden, one of the UK's leading Filed Mycologists. Friends of Nevis Trustee Kirsty Ross and her fellow BTO licenced bird ringer John Owen resumed their popular drop in Bird Ringing events with a highly successful session on Sunday 11th September, ringing over 80 birds and attracting several visitors. Left: Field Mycologist Liz Holden leading Fungi Foray; Right: Licensed Ringer recording biometric data during bird ringing session. Dates for the diary
If you want more details or wish to sign up pop over to our events page!
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In August and September, we are planning two work parties per month, tackling essential tasks in Glen Nevis and on the Ben such as footpath maintenance and bracken bashing in our Future Forests tree exclosures. Events will be led by Rory and or one of our NLP Seasonal Ranger team. If you want to join in for a day of healthy outdoor exercise doing some essential conservation work then pop over to our events page to check dates and sign up. In addition in August we will be running our popular Monday Morning Litter Picks. Great for a morning's walk, chat and litter pick on paths in the lower Glen and helping keep the Glen clean and tidy during the busy summer period.  Friends of Nevis Volunteer Bianca getting stuck into a cross drain on the Allt a Mhuilinn path
Following on from our successful Spring Litter Pick on the 9th of May the following volunteer events have been put on the calendar for this summer:
On Sunday 9thMay Friends of Nevis held a very successful and well attended Spring Litter Pick in the Glen. A large team of volunteers split into smaller groups and checked the paths and all the usual places from the Curling Ponds up to Upper Falls Car Park (Steall). Over 30 bags of litter and rubbish were removed during the day. A significant portion of the rubbish was from makeshift camps and tarps abandoned in the woods, probably dating back to last year. Many thanks to all who volunteered and to Joy for organising!
As a result of the planned lifting of restrictions regarding meeting outdoors and travelling Friends of Nevis are planning to resume volunteer activities from May
Our first event on Sunday 9th of May will be the postponed annual spring litter pick in the Glen. There may still be ongoing limits of numbers, requirements to maintain physical distancing and also maintain records of attendance for Track and Trace purposes, which we will brief participants on accordingly. For further details have a look at our events page  Friends of Nevis have been saddened to learn of the death of Libby Williamson. Libby, an active and well-known member of the local community, joined the Friends of Nevis a number of years ago. A keen walker and member of a number of local community groups, she was one of the ‘stalwarts’ of the organisation, regularly attending volunteer and member events. She will be greatly missed by Friends of Nevis and all of her friends. The photo shows her at one of the Autumn Litter Picks in Glen Nevis, a couple of years ago. Due to the current Covid related restrictions in place for travel and meeting, we have cancelled Volunteer Events scheduled for January and February and March. We will continue to monitor the situation and hope that after Easter we will be able to resume activities.
In the meantime, many thanks to our members and friends for their continued support during these challenging times. On Monday 14th December we held our last Volunteer event of the year, another of our Monday Morning Litter Pick's, which have proved very popular. On this occasion we had 7 volunteers who split into smaller groups to clear up the paths in the lower Glen, also Braveheart car park and the Visitor Centre car park . We collected about 14 bags of rubbish in total, so the Glen is looking better for Christmas! A huge thankyou to everyone who has volunteered their time this year to help with Friends of Nevis, Nevis Landscape Partnership and John Muir Trust work parties and litter picks, in the Glen and on the Ben. Without your time and efforts during this challenging year it would be impossible to keep the place in the state we wish to do. In addition, many have also generously supported Friends of Nevis through the year, by donations and membership. Events for 2021Looking to the new year, our first event is a Monday Morning Litter Pick, on Monday January 4th 2021, in the Lower Glen. A chance to have a leisurely walk, chat and clear up!
Volunteer Work Parties for February and March are also on the events page and I will be adding events for the rest of the year shortly. Hopefully, as we get further into the year, the effect of vaccinations will start to have an effect and we can resume more normal operations. In the meantime however we still need to be vigilant so please ensure that you sign up if you wish to come along, or get in touch by email, so we can send out our Covid safe ways of working instructions and manage events in a safe manner. In the meantime, have a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas and New Year! Friends of Nevis held another successful Autumn Pick on Sunday 22nd November although Covid restrictions limited the number of people we could have attending this year and pre registering was required. 20 people attended and after an initial briefing we split into smaller groups to tackle the Curling ponds, Braveheart Car Park and the Visitor Center Car Park, various riverside paths and also the upper Glen around Lower Falls and Upper Falls car parks Overall 25 bags of rubbish and various other items such as bread crates, bits of a bed and a microwave (below) were collected.   As well as clearing litter a team did a tidy up at the Curling Ponds and also tackled the blocked culvert that has been causing flooding across the path over the last few weeks. Calum and Hughie got stuck in...and some bits of equipment nearly got stuck in permanently......but after much pushing and rodding a large boulder was disgorged allowing the culvert to drain properly.
Many thanks to all who helped out and apologies to those who didn't get a place: hopefully by the next Litter Pick we will operating in a more normal way! Many thanks to everyone who has signed up for this years event.
The event is now fully booked up due to restrictions we have on numbers due to Covid 19. Please don't attend the event if you have not already signed up. |
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May 2021
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