Biodiversity – Improvements To Our Ponds For Wildlife
Loads of excess pond weed has been cleared from 17th pond this week, as you can see from the attached photos and video posted on our message board. Trevor Boulden, and his team from Tenterden Wildlife, braved the cold and wet- and flying golf balls – to clear the pond of invasive weed and enable the wide variety of plant and animal life we know is there to thrive. We are very grateful to Tenterden Wildlife for their expertise and very hard work to help us keep TGC as a haven for wildlife.
You should soon see a couple of barn owl nesting boxes installed on the course. A 2025 bird survey will be carried out this spring and we hope to see improvements in the number of birds observed and range of species. Reptile mats are also planned to be put on the course.
Click HERE to view our 2024 Women In Golf Annual Report
Good news on TGC biodiversity – October 2024
We are starting to make real progress in our endeavors to improve the biodiversity on our golf course.
Last year we planted a lot of aquatic and marginal plants and they are doing well in our ponds. They had to endure drying up of the ponds in the late summer but they have certainly been well watered in since. They seems to be doing well and will be monitored and more planted if necessary.
Some of the bird boxes we installed last year have been occupied and more will be installed shortly to encourage robins in particular, and two barn owl boxes will be erected. We are very grateful to Tenterden Wildlife for accessing funding for this from Sussex Lund Fund. Two bug hotels have also been put up.
Bat surveys have been carried out and amazingly 5 species have been found including Common Pipistrelle, Soprano Pipistrelle, Grey Long-eared Bat, and Dauberons and Noctule Bats. A future survey will use more sophisticated detectors as more species are suspected to be present.
Reptile mats will be put out again to detect these animals.
