With the heat of May behind them, the volunteers arrived at June's first gathering, waterproofed from head to toe, as the heavens at last yielded to rain. The verdant woodland and luxuriant grasslands were a testament to the recent summer sun and warm rains.

The woodland workers scrambled into the woods and took up their positions to continue the challenge of fixing the fence line around Long Close Meadow, in preparation for grazing cows.

The turbo twosome were back from their holidays, much to my relief, and I soon set them to work on two rotten strainer posts that needed replacing. These hefty posts have to be dug four feet into the ground, not a task for the faint-hearted. The fence was installed by contractors 13 years ago, and what we didn’t realise was that the posts, which must take the strain, had been concreted in. Try as they might, these men, half-man, half-machine, were defeated by the concrete. Undeterred, they devised an ingenious way to work around it.

There is a niche for everyone. Among us is the fencing nerd, who has installed and repaired so many fences that her knowledge is second to none. Whether it is stock netting, smooth or barbed wire, or the bewildering array of tensioning tools, dragon bars, monkey strainers, flamingo bars, she is at ease with them all. For her, perfection is the aim.

Then there is the fixer. Be it gates, bridges, or anything in between, no task seems to faze this man. His memory for detail is so acute that I now rely on him to remember things for me, having come to terms with the fact that my own memory is rather more fluid.

There is the tidy-upper who scrubs the signs till they sparkle and clears debris along the pathways. There is the one who keeps us amused by bombarding us with banter, and there are the all-rounders, competent, capable and dependable at any job they take on.

At Finemere we are involved in a project to assess the quality of the River Cherwell and its largest tributary, the River Ray. And so there are the water testers, who quietly and diligently take ownership of monitoring the health of Finemere’s streams.

The River Ray rises near Quainton and flows west across the surrounding farmland before joining the River Cherwell at Islip. Each month, our volunteers measure nitrate and phosphate levels in the water. Nitrates are largely associated with fertiliser run-off from arable land, while phosphates most commonly originate from sewage effluent. 

Being close to the river's headwaters, phosphate levels remain consistently low, while nitrate levels can occasionally reach moderate levels. Encouragingly, the woodland appears to play an important role in buffering the waterway from pollution.

The day draws to an end and, after much squelching, digging and banter, the woodland workers head back towards the car park. The fences are stronger, the paths tidier, and the streams a little better understood. Each volunteer has played their part, bringing their own skills and enthusiasm to the task. Together, they help ensure that Finemere remains a special place for wildlife and people alike.

More than 1,700 volunteers help us towards our vision of more nature everywhere, on our nature reserves, at our visitor and education centres, in our offices and more.

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