IF COUNTING the flowers in a meadow on a sunny Sunday afternoon doesn’t appeal to you you could help clear a bat’s feeding path, pull some Himalayan balsam weed, fix the guttering - or just make the tea.

Volunteers at the Sholing Valleys Study Centre in Southampton get together on the last Sunday of every month to help keep the 20 acres of woodland, pond, and fields healthy, tidy and beautiful but also maintain its biodiversity.

But they are always on the look-out for extra pairs of hands and there’s a free lunch in it if you are willing to help.

The Sunday sessions also include a nature watch for four to seven year olds between 10am and 12.30pm.

The sessions are practical tasks suitable for all ages and abilities and also includes coppicing, litter-picking and species surveying.

Vice chairman of the charity, which is run entirely by volunteers and based on Station Road, Sholing, is Candy Snelling.

She said: “We just do it for the fun of it.”