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Fleet Pond

Main car park off Cove Road, Fleet
OS Map 186, Grid Ref SU824553
Client: Fleet Pond Society

Fleet Pond is Hampshire's largest freshwater lake, covering an area of 21 Ha (52 acres). The Pond lies within a larger nature reserve totalling 57 Ha (141 acres), most of which is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. As well as the freshwater lake the reserve also contains areas of reed beds, marshes, heathland and woodland, all of which provides sanctuary to a rich community of plants and animals.
Fleet Pond was probably created by the damming of natural watercourses, draining a wide area of heath and woodland. In excess of 2,000 species of plants and animals have been recorded on the reserve. This includes almost 250 species of birds, 12 kinds of fish, more than 400 flowering plants and 250 species of fungi.

photophoto

Two days were devoted to removing birch regrowth from heathland near the pond, with the help of lazydogs, which lever up the plant with most of its roots. The ones that didn't shift had to be cut and await further treatment.



photophotophoto

Luckily this time we had the better day of the weekend, and cleared a good area of pine seedlings from the heath. We left some for the local group, who unfortunately may have got rather wet the next day. Thanks to Mark for the pictures.



Directions

Meet at 10am in the car park off Cove Road. From Junction 4A of the M3 head south on the A327 for Fleet. Fork right at the traffic lights and then right at the roundabout onto Cove Road (A3013). Look out for a brown nature reserve sign a few hundred meters further on and turn left over the railway bridge. At the other side of the bridge turn right and follow the track until you reach the car park.
Look out for the yellow HCV flags.

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