Brambles, Balsam and Bindweed

Regular readers of this drivel blog will no doubt wince each time at the grammatical errors and unwise punctuation that so contaminate our postings. Happily, H.M. Government is aware of the falling standards in general, and the newly re-issued Rees-Mogg style manual will be your correspondent’s constant muse from now on. Whether you notice any improvement is entirely a matter for you, dear reader.

One of the problems with trying to look after a wet area is that even in times of low rainfall, plants grow strongly. Add a few downpours and scorching heat, and you begin to understand what tropical vegetation looks like.

That’s fine in a nature reserve, but even here there are places where it’s not welcome. Walking the boardwalk had become an exercise to test the adventurous spirit; you could begin to wonder if you were going to make it out alive, or at least by tea-time.

Our very own exotic and invasive plant, the Himalayan Balsam of which we have blogged so much before, had also taken the opportunity to reach for the sky and was beginning to set seed; the very thing we try hard to prevent.  So although this was still July and we were therefore not able to start the official cutting programme, there was still plenty requiring our attention. The day was dull and a little drizzly at first, and still rather humid, but at least that intense heat had dropped. Perhaps it was this that encouraged an exceptional turnout of 20 volunteers to arrive at the earlier than usual time of 9.00.

The plan was to have a couple of our recently qualified superstar brush cutter operators trimming back the vegetation overhanging the boardwalk, supported by a crack team of sweepers clearing the cut stuff to the side. That plan had as a pre-condition that there were two working brush cutters: they were checked the evening before and one was found to be unusable, but the other worked well when tested. So at the start of the working party we were already down by 50%. At that point, the ‘working’ one refused to start too. Now I’m not too good at sums, but I reckon that took our deficit to 100%. To at least partially mitigate the situation the trusty Grizzly was fired up and pressed into service. Meanwhile, the superstar brush cutter operators tugged at the starter cord; they fiddled with various controls; they muttered strange and obscene incantations; in desperation they even consulted the manual. All to no avail; how many men does it take to start a brush cutter?

Everyone dispersed to the various areas still hosting Balsam plants, little white sacks in hand to contain the pernicious seed heads.

Himalayan Balsam thrives particularly well where the ground is wettest, such as along Fox’s Beck. It especially enjoys growing on the far bank, presenting the greatest challenge to the pluckiest of volunteers.

Or perhaps they just love a chance to dance…

Eventually, from the far-flung regions of the reedbed we heard the throaty roar, stuttering at first but gradually gaining strength, of the single brush cutter coming to life. Maybe it was just persistence; maybe it was the use of strong language, or perhaps it was looking at the manual, but at last the plan was at least partially back on course. Now those boys could use their toys!

An hour in, and the Balsam was still not giving in. It has always been good at hiding in brambles and nettles, but this year it seemed to seasoned old hands that it has taken to keeping close company with bindweed. Is this evolution in action? It certainly makes pulling the wretched stuff out even harder. Incidentally, the most satisfying bit of the Balsam Bashing Process is when you fold up the pulled-up stem prior to chucking it onto a pile of earlier victims; it makes the most satisfying ‘phlock’ sound. It’s things like that that give you the motivation to go on.

Such was the size of the turnout, there were not enough sacks for every one of the plucky band of Flower Head Pluckers to have one of their own to put the plucked flower heads in. Those without sacks had to find other places to hold those plucked heads, for periodic decanting into someone else’s sack. At least, I think that’s what’s going on here…

Anyway, an hour in also marked the half way point of the working party, so we struggled back across the watercourse and retraced our steps through the towering reeds to the welcoming storage container for a well-deserved drink and custard cream. There is an expression ‘fill your boots’, but some of us had already done that in crossing the watercourse. Soggy socks are never fun.

That done, it was once more unto the breach dear friends. There was still plenty of Balsam to be found, and we lit upon an area where they had reached gigantic proportions.

This is a rich vein for further exploration; watch this space!

Meanwhile, back on the boardwalk, sterling work had been done and the result is clear for all to see.

Despite everyone having had such fun, a halt had eventually to be called. The worst section had been dealt with, but the rest is waiting.

Update 31^st July:

A small but finely-honed crew returned on Wednesday to strim some more, reaching the bridge over the Beck. To our great joy, both brush cutters roared into life, achieving 100% capacity, as the statisticians might say. With two superstar brush cutter operators backed up by two moderately capable rake and broom operators, we got on really rather well. So well indeed, that your correspondent unwisely recycled his ancient quip about the rake’s progress. There’s still plenty more to do, but the worst sections are now beautifully clear. Passing pilgrims taking their ease on the seat can now contemplate the scene untroubled by the risk of missing tea.

A busy week, commencing 21 July

There had already been two abortive attempts to organise another Himalayan Balsam bashing session: the first was called off at short notice due to a forecast of a 90% chance of heavy rain (which in the event came several hours too late), and the second was called off as it was likely to be too close to the intended first full working party of the new cutting season. However, the Balsam plants in question took the opportunity to grow Triffid-like confident of staying un-bashed; indeed they were shameless or, to put it another way, unabashed.

This was too much for our most devoted Balsam bashers, and on Sunday 21^st three of them made their way into the undergrowth. (Thinking about it, why when something is so overgrown is it called ‘undergrowth’?) Only the sound of their cheery voices celebrating another nettle sting and the notice warning all and sundry of the dangers posed by their activities alerted the passing walker to their presence.

Just the flower heads were removed. These are explosive little blighters when the seeds are ripe, which explains their success in spreading so far so quickly, so it is important to get them away from wet ground where they can continue to ripen.

Where it was possible to pull them up, the roots were stacked off the ground to dry out. The job was planned to be a quick grab of the flowering plants but of course it’s difficult to know when to stop, until 1.5 hours later the Bashers had to call it a day in the hot sticky weather, by which time they had cleared a fair amount.

This being a SSSI, we always needed to take direction on managing The Commons from Natural England, and over the years had adapted our working practices to match it. However, their change of requirements, linked to funding, has unfortunately coincided with the change of ownership of the place, so it falls to NWT to try to meet a new, more demanding schedule, with the help of course of us, their on-site volunteers. It was quickly clear that we were going to really struggle to do all the work required in a much more compressed timescale than previously, without running the real risk of alienating and indeed exhausting our loyal band. Accordingly, on Wednesday we met with Kirsty, NWT’s outgoing reserves officer with responsibility for Southrepps Commons, and George, who already runs another little reserve called Cley Marshes, and he will now be keeping an eye on us. I think it’s fair to say our concerns were explored thoroughly, and we came away reassured that they were recognised and solutions will be put in place.

As a result, we now have a cutting timetable:

The first working party will on Sunday 4th August from 9am (the earlier start is to avoid the worst of the heat, as we did last year). Further work parties will then be on alternate Sundays throughout August and September: 18th August; 1st September, 15th September and 29th September.  Further dates will be confirmed later.

On Thursday we were very pleased to meet Emily, NWT’s monitoring officer, who came to see The Common for herself, and to discuss ways in which we can build on the monitoring work we have already been doing. In particular, since 2012 we have been regularly taking photographs from a series of locations, a process called Fixed Point Photography. This started out as a means of documenting the spread of invasive plants such as Alder, Willow, Bulrush and Michaelmas Daisy, and the collection of in excess of 1,500 photos is proving valuable. With Emily’s advice we will now add some more locations and apply a little more scientific rigour to the process. Our meeting was an outdoor one, going from location to location to accurately record their precise place in the world, and inevitably took some time. Naturally, we had picked the hottest day of the year so far to do it, having postponed an earlier attempt due to a downpour. Weather, don’t you just love it?

As well as looking at the Fixed Point Photography, Emily was very taken with the site overall. We had a quick look at School Common, since one of our Fixed Point locations is at Scouts’ Pond, and were very impressed with this rather splendid den.

 Emily is working on which species need monitoring here, and how that should be done. We already have a very comprehensive plant list – the latest one, along with lots of other useful information is available from https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-in-norfolk/commons/southrepps-common - and bird sightings are also well catered for, but many other creatures are somewhat below the radar. I suspect there will be some more roles for volunteers here!

Also available from that web page is the information on the Commons’ history that was previously hosted on the now defunct Southrepps Commons Trust, and for anyone interested in our village it is well worth a look.

Finally, a very busy week was topped off on Saturday with NWT having a pitch at the splendid Southrepps Village Bash, which despite an un-called for falling off in the weather was still a great success; hearty congratulations are due to all who organised it and helped on the day, and indeed before it! We can hope that a lot of people were made aware of the existence of an important reserve in our village, and perhaps some will choose to join us as volunteers!

NWT’s Commons week events at Southrepps

During Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s recent Commons Week, Southrepps was honoured to be the location for three events – well that was the plan.

First up was ‘Exploring the Common’ on Monday 8^th July – led and reported by Margaret Dowland and Sue Parsons:

Blessed with a beautiful day we had a group of 21 people joining the walk around the SSSI. Note the encouraging use of the map.

This lovely number did mean that talking on the boardwalk was a little difficult. Fortunately, in the group were two NWT helpers and several other people, notably Yvonne and Stephen, who were happy to share their knowledge. In fact they found some fantastic fungi that they shared with the group. Here is a very poor photo of collared parachute, which charmed everyone.

The Marsh Helleborines were absolutely at their best...

 ... as were the Marsh Fragrant Orchids.

Yvonne spotted the shell case of the micro moth Psyche Casta. Known as 'bagworms' or 'case-bearers', the larvae of the Psychidae construct cases from fragments of plant material; in this instance, pieces of grass. The case is attached to a tree trunk or foliage, or quite often to a wooden fence or gate. (See https://norfolkmoths.co.uk/micros.php?bf=1860  for more on this and some images of the moths and their cases.)

The quaking grass gave a lovely purple hue to the common, and the tiny fen bedstraw was not overlooked.

Not only did we have fungi experts but also an orchid specialist, and Roger identified the Pugsley's marsh orchid, otherwise called the Narrow leaved marsh orchid.

The participants appeared to enjoy themselves. For some it was their first but hopefully not last visit to the Common and I might have a new recruit for the Balsam bash on Friday 19th July at 3pm. We did suggest that they might like to return at midnight to view the glow worms. This would certainly be worth a trip after dark - they can be seen from the boardwalk.

Wednesday 10^th July was the date for ‘New light on the history of Norfolk’s commons’, scheduled to be held in the Southrepps Village Hall, and featuring references to our own beloved Southrepps Commons. Great consternation was caused however on the evening before, when a chance remark revealed that the Village Hall was also the intended venue for a meeting of the Parish Council. So urgent emails were sent to all who had booked for the lecture, advising them that instead of coming to Southrepps they needed to find their way to Trimingham Village Hall, which I am happy to say they did. And what a fabulous new hall it is! It’s very new, apparently part funded by the Sheringham Shoal Windfarm and the National Lottery. If like me you’ve never had the pleasure of going there, take a look at their web page (https://trimingham.org/village-hall/).

Anyway, I digress. Once the eager throng had partaken of the generous refreshments provided by NWT (also courtesy of the National Lottery, which has part funded the ‘Wildlife in Common Project’ (see https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-in-norfolk/commons/wildlife-in-common) they filed into the splendidly light and airy main room, to sit themselves on the hastily set out chairs (I can take some of the credit here, thank you). The ever-enthusiastic Gemma Walker introduced Tom Williamson of the University of East Anglia, where he is Professor of Landscape History, and away he went, like a runaway train. According to the pre-publicity, Tom’s aim was to “describe the results of recent research, carried out as part of the 'Wildlife in Common' project, into the history and archaeology of Norfolk's common land”, and boy, did he cover some ground, in more senses than one. He is an extraordinarily enthusiastic lecturer, with an enormous passion for his subject, and that must have inspired many in the audience. Naturally, his talk was copiously illustrated, including several interesting shots of our own dear spot.

Tom is very, very keen on maps and the fun you can have exploring them, overlaying data from different maps to reveal many unexpected things. For example, we were introduced to the wonders of the Ordnance Survey maps available from the National Library of Scotland – see https://maps.nls.uk/os/ - as Tom said, you could spend a day looking at them, but it would be time well spent. As was an evening listening to him.

Minibeast magic on the common – report by Margaret Dowland

Friday 12 was the final Southrepps activity for Wildlife in Common Week. Gemma and two NWT education officers - Georgie and Findley - set up camp in School Common. Gemma was planting wildflower seeds to take home, colouring badges and making butterfly feeders. Findley was deep in the wood rummaging in the undergrowth to unearth, woodlice, spiders and all manner of creepy crawlies. I was with Georgie in School meadow with the sweep nets to see what we could catch.

Common green Grasshopper:

Female Meadow plant bug on thw hand of one young participant:

Unknown green bug:

The session lasted from 3.30 - 5.00 but unfortunately clashed with the School’s fete. Despite this we had 24 keen naturalists and their families. It was great to meet so many children fascinated by the beautiful insects we found, even if we couldn’t name them all.