Volunteering in Action
All through the year, volunteers are out work somewhere in the parishes. Some activities happen regularly and others are arranged when needed. There’s usually something happening every month, with whoever is available and whoever wants to join in. Here’s a taste of some of the activities we’ve done or are doing.
Managing Our Community Environments
Watercourses
Community ponds. We recently started a community pond in Berrick Salome, to provide a watery environment and additional habitat.
Boggy areas. We have been removing sedge at Cuckoo Pen and Millbrook Mead in Benson. Pendulous sedge is a great natural waterside plant, but it can be invasive. We are removing it from some wet areas to develop a boggy environment for the creatures and plants that need that.
Watercress Beds. We help maintain the watercress beds in Ewelme with a variety of jobs, including donning wellies and cutting channels in the watercress to get the stream flowing at full speed and the watercress growing well. Ongoing conservation work takes place at the watercress
Benson Brook. We are rewiggling parts of the brook between Benson and Ewelme to make patches of slower and faster flow. This will provide a variety of habitats and improve diversity in our fish, plant and invertebrate populations.
Community Green Spaces
Planting wildflowers. The meadows where we plant need poor soil and weak grass so we also seed with yellow rattle, which feeds off the nutrients in the roots of nearby grasses
Planting hedges. Hedges are a great environment for wildlife as well as providing a corridor for creatures to migrate. We’ve recently planted a hedge along Warborough’s Green Lane and in St Helen’s play area in Benson.
Scything and raking. We let the grass grow long in places such as Warwick Spinney in Benson and the Watercress Beds in Ewelme. We then cut it back in the autumn and rake the cut grass, removing it to reduce its fertilising effect and enable wild flowers to flourish.
Coppicing hazel. We do this at Millbrook Mead in Benson and the Watercress Beds in Ewelme. We cut the hazel on a 5-year rotation, producing stakes and binders for hedge laying.
Controlling scrub. Brambles and nettles can be a problem in places, where children play and people walk, such as Bertie West’s Field in Benson and where we want to enable other plants to survive. We also cutback willow and other encroaching scrub.
Planting trees and bulbs. This often draws many people and families to help.
Building dead hedges. We use the brash from scrub management to provide both a sturdy boundary and a wildlife habitat. They are a nature-friendly alternative to bonfires. The latest dead hedge is down near Cuckoo Pen, bordering the allotments.
Mowing regularly. We have a team of volunteer mowers who are part of a rota mowing paths in our green spaces in Benson and helping to maintain our roadside verges to improve them for pollinators. Please get in touch if you can help and can join the rota.
Citizen Science
Bird surveys. A team of a dozen or so people do bird surveys over set routes regularly throughout the year. These contribute vital data to understand bird population trends and what measure might help.
Riverfly monitoring. Riverflies are a good indicator of a healthy watercourse. The data we gather helps us to understand the populations and how to conserve their habitats.
Water quality monitoring. Each year we take part in the Earthwatch water blitz, to monitor the nitrate and phosphate levels in our watercourses. In 2025, nitrates were very high locally and phosphates less so.
New green space monitoring. The new building developments in Benson have large areas of green space, with a range of habitats, albeit somewhat sparse initially. We are monitoring the success of the biodiversity measures there.
Water vole sightings. The water vole population is in decline, partly from mink who predate them and partly from loss of habitat. We are surveying our brooks and ditches to understand the situation and potentially help landowners and farmers work around the voles’ habitat.
If these sorts of activities appeal to you, please get in touch at BensonAreaNature@yahoo.com and we’ll add you to our list of volunteers so you hear about upcoming activities.