TOMORROW, a group of people will assemble in the Black Dam car park to assist the two park rangers for that area in clearing undergrowth and executing other conservation work around the pond.

These volunteers, ranging in age from 16 to 60 and beyond, help out every month to improve the area.

Young children must be accompanied by an adult. Food and drink is supplied and there is no stipulation on being experienced in this work, which is only for two hours.

Among the tasks to be carried out is the clearance of scrub (stunted trees and brushwood) from the pond’s edges, to make room for new reed beds which will be installed on the west side of the pond.

The whole area is now classified as a nature reserve under the National Parks Act. It was developed by the Hampshire Naturalist Trust, Hampshire County Council and Basingstoke Borough Council in 1972.

It is managed by the Hampshire Wildlife Trust and two park rangers are in charge of the area. These two ladies are kept busy throughout the year, but it is in the summer months when they are really active, for they arrange various activities for children during the school holidays, including giving them the opportunity to watch the wildlife in action.

Waterfowl which can be observed there include mallard ducks and tufted ducks, moorhen, Canadian geese and swans, all of which are regularly fed by visitors, although the park rangers prefer the use of bird seed rather than bread. Birds cannot digest bread very easily with the result that pieces get stuck in their throat and cause them distress.

Other creatures to be seen are bats, water shrews, and water voles, while dragonflies and even kingfishers visit the pond.

Plant life is abundant, with flowers such as crocuses and daffodils in the spring, while alder, willow and dogwood are also to be seen.

There are picnic tables and seating available, with information signs describing the various birds that inhabit the area.

The location of Black Dam ponds has always been an ideal position for both the wildlife and humans, with the A30 joining the road into Basingstoke, but the area, originally called Newrams Springs, has suffered at the hands of man over the past 80 years.

The first inroads into the ponds were in 1930, when contractors began to construct the Basingstoke bypass from that junction across the countryside to the Winchester Road, where it emerges near the Stag and Hounds Inn.

But the four main ponds, Mill Head, Black Dam, Lower Fish Pond and Upper Fish Pond, were saved, with the watercress beds on the other side of the road.

Then, in October 1966, a road tanker, full of styrene chemical, overturned on the nearby road, and tipped some 1,000 of its 3,400 gallons of lethal liquid into the Black Dam waters, killing most of the wildlife as far as Old Basing, as the spring from that area carried on into the village.

The colourless liquid remained in the reeds so the medical authorities decided to burn it out, with the consequences that the whole area was a sorrowful sight for months afterwards.

Nature soon restored itself, though, and within a year the incident was a forgotten memory.

But worse was to come, for in 1969, contractors moved in to develop the land for the Town Development Scheme, which included the building of the M3 motorway and the erection of the Black Dam housing estate.

The local folk were horrified at the filling in of the marshland and most of the ponds, while the wildlife left the site to nest elsewhere.

Upon the completion of this major operation it was hoped that most of the creatures would return, and gradually they did.

Now, the land has returned to a place where people can relax and watch the wildlife, and to appreciate what Mother Nature has given us in her wisdom. The world is a wonderful place if we would only stop and look around us.