Rodley Nature Reserve Volunteer Edna Cowman  aged 89 - video Dailymotion

Yorkshire Post

Rodley Nature Reserve Volunteer Edna Cowman, whi is 89 years old.

Transcript

00:00I'm Edna Cowan. I shall be 90 in October and I've been volunteering at Rodley Nature Reserve

00:10for the last 21 years. And I come here because it just is such a lovely place. I meet hundreds

00:17of lovely people, very friendly and everybody with the same attitude. They come because

00:24it's peaceful, we're surrounded by nature, it's extremely good for us to be out in the

00:29green and get the fresh air. And like people and just have a look at some nice birds. And

00:37if there aren't any birds about, there are usually butterflies or insects. It's nice

00:41in the tea room. I did a lot of volunteering in the tea room, making cups of tea and cups

00:48of coffee, selling ice creams, soft drinks, home-baked cakes. I've done a bit of that

00:56as well, but I don't do any baking now. One of the last jobs I did was coming in early

01:02and opening all the hides, feeding the birds on the willow path and also preparing the

01:10visitor centre ready for the arrival of visitors at 10 o'clock. I would go out and I'd have

01:16a walk around the reserve. I'd go to one particular spot, which is the John Aykroyd meadow. And

01:24there was a seat there that my late husband used to, when he got not quite fit enough

01:31to do the whole walk around the meadow, he would sit there and wait while I completed

01:37the walk. And then we'd sit and have a little chat and then we'd walk back down and probably

01:43go in and get a nice cup of coffee and we could have another bit of a sit down. Then

01:49I liked to go up to the manager's garden. In the manager's garden, it's all little

01:54garden birds and we get nice, nice little birds in there. We get lots of pheasants in,

02:01we get the occasional squirrel. I always have my lunch in the manager's garden because it's

02:05again, it's very peaceful, it's nice and I meet a nice lot of people. And then from there,

02:12I would go walk down and I would start off in the lagoon hide where you see all the water

02:19birds, usually some breeding swans, something. And I'd sit in there for a while. I make a

02:27list of all the birds I've seen and where I've seen them and how many there are. And

02:32they go into a book in the visitor's centre, which is used, and that information is used

02:39in the annual review of the reserve, which lists all of the birds and animals, butterflies,

02:48insects, dragonflies, everything that's seen on the reserve is listed and then that goes

02:55into the annual review and it makes a jolly good book. From the lagoon hide, I wander

03:03along to the duck marsh hide and see what's on there. And then from there, I go on to

03:10the Willowpath hide. We did have a surprise visitor once. We had a bitten, but unfortunately,

03:17the reserve isn't quite big enough to encourage a bitten to stay. And also we had a visit

03:24from an osprey, which was very exciting. And we do get, we get quite a lot of red kites

03:31flying over and buzzards. We have resident barn owl, who has reared three chicks this

03:41year. One of them has already fledged, so we have two left because we have a camera

03:47in the barn owl box and that is transmitted to the screen in the visitor's centre. And

03:54we have the same thing with the kestrel box. And the pair of kestrels, they reared three

04:02young, two, beg your pardon, two young kestrels and they've both fledged. So we haven't any

04:09kestrels to sit and look at, but we can see them flying about now, which is very nice.

04:14Come, visit nature, come to an area where it is an oasis of peace and quiet, friendly

04:21people. It doesn't cost you very much money. You don't have to have any money. You can

04:26bring your own drinks, sandwiches. We have plenty of picnic tables, lots of places where

04:31you can sit and eat your sandwich or bring a few bob with you. You can come in and just

04:36for a donation, you can have a nice hot drink and perhaps a piece of homemade cake or a

04:42nice buttered scone and you can sit and you'll find very nice, friendly people who will give

04:48you a jolly good idea of what's available, where is the best place to go and see a particular

04:54bird. You keep your fingers crossed and hope they'll still be about. And if you're lucky,

04:59you might see a little tree creeper or a nuthatch. You'll get quite a colourful jay. They like

05:07to hang on to the peanut feeders in the manager's garden and have a nice cheap feed. And also

05:14you'll see lots of jackdaws who are very cheeky and magpies, crows and lots of chaffinches,

05:23green finches. So it's a place that for visitors is well worth to come. Oh it is. This is the

05:27best place in the world for visitors to come to. There's no place like Rodley Nature Reserve.

05:33It's been with me through happiness and tears and back to happiness and it is just the best

05:40place to be. It really is.

Rodley Nature Reserve Volunteer Edna Cowman aged 89

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