It is hard to believe that it is the end of 2020 already.  The first year of our Ice Age Ponds project hasn’t developed the way we hoped.  But, with the help of our fantastic volunteers and our Advisers at the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we have managed to do some fabulous research, discover over 1300 historic ponds, survey over 200 of these ponds and are well on the way to having a clearer understanding of where these important sites can be found across our area.

All this work prepares us for 2021, when we will use this information to select ponds and areas to visit and survey in more detail.  While we don’t know how this will work in practice, we do know, that with the help of our volunteers, we will find a way to continue recording and raising awareness of these wonderful features.

Volunteer Ice Age Ponds Warden

We are delighted to say that Sarah King, has joined the Ice Age Ponds team as a volunteer warden, with the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust.  She is due to start in December, and you will hear lots more from her in the New Year.

Early Christmas Social

It was wonderful to see so many of our Ice Age Ponds volunteers at our Zoom Christmas Social on November 26th.  I hope that you found it as enjoyable as we did.  We were especially impressed with the gingerbread mammoths created by Noelle and Sue, and Barbara – you have inspired me to try harder with my icing next time.

This mammoth family is by Noelle and Sue

This is a mammoth, tusks and Stone Age family, by Barbara.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you also to everyone who made wonderful suggestions about how we move forward with awareness raising for next year.  We really do appreciate your help, and will be using these as the basis of our plans for 2021.  For those of you who were not able to join us, we will be putting the full recording on our Ice Age Ponds website (www.herefordshirewt.org/iceageponds) so you can catch up with what is happening at a time to suit you.

Wishing all our volunteers and supporters a very Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year.  We look forward to seeing you all in 2021.

Beth Andrews

Ice Age Ponds Project Officer.