This morning we had a nice sunny morning to join the volunteers at Hill Hook Nature Reserve in Sutton Coldfield.

Olivier joined on her first GoodGym session and Suki joined us for the first time at Hill Hook after her mornings Parkrun exploits!

The task was to plant 300 trees. With all the rain it made digging the holes a little easier! It was fantastic work and by 11.30am we managed to plant all 300 trees! A really fantastic effort, well done everyone involved :)

It was a nice morning for helping out at the Hill Hook Nature Reserve in Sutton Coldfield this morning.

It was great to meet Calum on his first GG Community Mission, who had cycled over from Five Ways and to see regulars Rachel and Charlotte at the the task.

The first task was cutting back all the brambles which was done in double quick time, even before Jonny arrived, who had been smashing out a Sutton Park Parkrun PB, before running across to the nature reserve after.

Next task was moving an invasive plant species, which could be spotted by it's slightly white leafs. After that it was more cutting back and trimming.

On a lovely sunny morning GoodGym were out at Hill Hook Nature Reserve helping the team with various tasks organised the the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust.

It was great to meet Chowie, who came to her first GoodGym Community Mission.

On arrival it was lovely to see the swans with their babies, which were apparently only a week old. Once I had taken a few photos it was on with the task. First job was some ground weeding to make space for some young trees.

Next job was the post erection! Yep a newly delivered flower identification needed to be erected. This involved lots of digging, before eventually putting a concrete type substance into the holes and our post was erected!

Next job was planting some plants in a boggy area of the nature reserve before finally finishing off with some more weeding near the stream.

It was a lovely morning of work and GG will look forward ti being back in August :)

It was great to meet Jess, who joined GoodGym for the first time today :)

The task was to remove some invasive plant species, while doing that Jess managed to remove a 'stray balloon' which had wrapped itself around a tree.

The next task was to put some gravel from the stream, on both entrances to a bridge so it was no longer a trip hazard. After that we had a quick selfie with the rest of the Hill Hook team, before moving onto the last task, which was clearing a path down to the lake view point, hence the pun! This involved plenty of chopping, clipping and raking.

This morning 4 Goodgymer's helped out at the Hill Hook Nature Reserve in Sutton Coldfield. It was great to meet Karen, who was joining GG for the first time :)

The task was to firstly to do some 'thinning', which meant cutting down one tree in each group of 3. We did this in pairs with one sawing and the other holding the tree. You can see we all looked safe and very fetching in our hard hats!

Once that was done we then got on with removing Ash plants which basically takeover if not kept in check!

Thanks for all who attended on such a cold day, we'll be back in February :)

Sofeen and I and about 25 others joined the regular Wildlife Trust Sunday volunteering day at Moseley Bog. Pond clearance and wet woodland management was on the cards this week and Sofeen got stuck straight in, wading into the pond to pull out the stray branches, logs and litter. It was messy business and the pond definitely had quite a distinctive smell.. but everyone pitched in and it was great to see the difference at the end. A nice sunny Sunday well spent.