In June, almost two and a half thousand visitors came through the visitors' centre, 230 school parties came and 9 other groups came on organised visits. Regular visitors will appreciate that these figures represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg; many more visitors come to the reserve outside our opening times. People from the village are only minutes away from their homes so they don't need a cup of tea from us. Dog walkers, cyclists and joggers very rarely pop into the centre, so an educated guess would suggest that we really had over 8000 visitors in June.
During the summer term we usually have a few secondary school pupils on work-experience. Due to an administrative error on my part we ended up with three young lads from Longsands School at the same time. (We normally only take one, or sometimes two, so as that they integrate with us rather than texting each other all day like they do in school!) They were just great, though inseparable. At the end of their two weeks, they presented us with a photo diary of their visit. I still miss them.
Our midweek work parties helped to keep the trails open without disturbing the wildlife too much, but because it hardly rained all month, there wasn't much grass to cut. We got on with fencing up at Diddington.
