A long good reed

 

With a deadline fast approaching, the Government has acted and the logjam has cleared for now. I refer not to the B word, but the lifting of the COVID lockdown, which has enabled us to return to The Common so we can crack on with cutting the main reedbed before we hit Natural England’s deadline for completing the task. Accordingly, a call to arms for December’s only session before Christmas was met with an overwhelming number of volunteers. So many in fact that in order to maintain the necessary social distancing the two dozen willing helpers were divided into three groups: one working on the main reed bed, with the other two working on the area adjacent to the small spur of the boardwalk leading to Bradfield Road as well as creating spaces for people to be able to step off the main boardwalk to allow others to pass safely, thus maintaining a safe space between them. We were joined for the first time by the very welcome new volunteer Dave: with three Daves in the reed bed team alone, the chances of the dazed and confused old hands guessing someone’s name correctly were greatly improved!

 The more weather-conscious amongst you will have noticed a certain amount of rain in recent months, and this has had the effect of making the reedbed wet, very wet indeed. The whole site must perform a valuable service for Southrepps by absorbing and holding on to huge quantities of water, but the down side is that a significant proportion of it is likely to fill the wellies of the unwary volunteer. So it was with some trepidation that we convened on the second Sunday of the month to begin the task before us. A couple of days earlier, three doughty individuals had cut a quantity of reed so there was plenty for us to get on with straight away.

 (Note the impressively purposeful stride of your correspondent in the middle of this group, and it’s not even time for refreshments!)

With two people loading each of the four sheets, two people guiding those sheets being winched to the dumping sites, and two on the winch, all 12 on this team were safely deployed.

As usual, there was plenty of banter, and the physical activity soon warmed up those cold hands and feet. Only at the end was your correspondent and photographer told that Team Leader John had managed to fall over backwards in the mud; something that always raises a cheer and if possible a photo, but sadly this time there is no photographic evidence.

An hour in, and the half-time break arrived. As is the current rule, we had to provide our own refreshments and to remember to keep our distance, but the break is always a welcome chance to have a suitably distanced chat with friends. The reed bed team was joined by the other teams, so it was just as well that there was now plenty of cleared reed to allow us all to spread out.

We were anxious to ensure that all the reeds that had been cut were shifted to the dumping site at the edge of the area before we finished; leaving them lying there for a month would make them much harder to work with on our return. Therefore, as the clock ran down a hardy trio of volunteers decided to haul a sheet or two themselves, whilst the winch was busy with heavier loads. This blast from the past will have reminded them why the winch was bought, for wet reed is a heavy material.

By the time we finished, the site looked like this.

Much remains to be done before That Deadline arrives, but another three or at most four sessions in the New Year should do it.

With a rare chance for a Sunday morning walk in pleasant weather before more rain was expected, it was good to see quite a few people making their way across the boardwalk. Most people, locals as well as visitors, are generally supportive of the work that we do on behalf of Norfolk Wildlife Trust to maintain this special place. Occasionally a different view is expressed, and this is often the legitimate wish to see nature doing what it does so well without human meddling. However, in the case of this rare valley fen habitat, to leave it un-managed would inevitably result in its fairly rapid conversion to a scrubby woodland, dominated by the alder trees that line the Beck and make it clear they have territorial designs on the whole of the reed bed and the grassy areas which are so precious for hosting such a range of uncommon plants, and of course the specialised animal life that depends on them. The loss of these small fragments would further reduce the biodiversity of this glorious oasis amid deserts of arable monocultures, and is presumably why Natural England monitors this Site of Special Scientific Interest so closely; and why NWT is so pleased with the work we do on its behalf. As has also become clear in recent years, fens, marshes and bogs perform a vital role in carbon capture, even more so than woodland, so by preserving even little patches like this Southrepps is doing a little bit towards mitigating the climate crisis.

 

Team Leader Julie was in the Bradfield Road team, and provided the following:

Half the group cleared reed from the Bradfield Road area to allow the snowdrops to flourish in the spring... 

The scrub was also cleared back along the Bradfield Road spur of the boardwalk... 

The other half of the group tackled some of the scrub encroaching on the boardwalk from Bradfield Road towards the car park... 

 We had to keep the branches off the boardwalk as it was a busy day on the Common today. Lovely to see so many people enjoying our special place. 

Anyway, snowdrops are free to emerge:

The area next to the boardwalk on the Bradfield Road spur has been cut back...

And the main boardwalk cut back so people have somewhere to step off to socially distance in this area... 

All materials cut back have been stacked for nature to reuse!

Here is the message of thanks from the Team Leaders:

Dear Volunteers

Today a great group of volunteers braved the cold and damp to work on the common. Such was the enthusiasm we were able to run two separate groups. One group tackled the tricky task of clearing the four year old reed from the reed bed adjacent to the Chadwick Bench. It was very wet and boggy and there were some cold feet out there.

The second group had a slightly drier area with half of them clearing the reed on the Bradfield Road site to enable the lovely snowdrops to flourish in the spring and the other half took up loppers to clear the scrub back from the boardwalk from Bradfield Road towards the Car Park. This allows people to be able to step off the boardwalk if required to enable social distancing and of course means you don't get your hat knocked off by overhanging branches!

It never ceases to amaze us how much the Volunteers achieve in two hours on a Sunday morning.  So well done and thank you so much to all of you. Also a big thank you goes out to ALL of our volunteers for your continued support throughout what has been a difficult year. We hope that you all stay safe and well and have a lovely Christmas and New Year.

Regards, Julie, Margaret, John, Kevin, Denise and Sue

A little light pruning before lockdown

 Bordering Area B – that grassy part of the Common beside Warren Road furthest from Lower Street – is some virtually impenetrable scrub. Scrub is of course a perfectly honourable habitat of great value to many species, but it does have the regrettable habit of trying to take over the world, with ambitions of becoming mature forest. Area B, and Area A, which as you might guess is the bit closer to Lower Street, is highly prized as a patch of grassland harbouring many really rather rare and special species too. Natural England, the organisation responsible for ensuring the proper management of SSSIs like this, has for some time been asking for that scrub to be restrained in its ambitions, and now that they have changed the timescales in which we have to do the reed cutting there is a ‘window’ for some time to be spent on rebuking the scrub.

12 volunteers convened at the appointed hour, to be treated as two teams of six. Here are some them demonstrating classic social distancing:

The job was to get from this…

To this

To that end, loppers were lopping, sawyers were sawing, and slashers were, well, you get the idea.

Slashers and loppers are all very well, but when you really want to make a difference, you call for Noel and the Brush Cutter. It must be doing some good, judging by the noise it makes.

Or a Samurai warrior maybe!!

Team Leader Julie’s special project was the building of a wall from the more substantial bits of cut willow, which appeared to have the makings of her own secret woodland hideaway. (Thank goodness no one cut down the electricity pole behind her!)

Last winter we opened up an area beyond Area B which we imaginatively named Area X. This is the haunt of monsters and demons (or at least it looks like it might be), with treacherous flooded holes awaiting the unwary. Undaunted, two plucky ladies ventured in there to remove baby Alders: we counted them out, and we counted both back, so that was alright.

Julie fell onto her hands and knees, suspiciously after imbibing something at the distanced “tea” break…

but she was hidden behind the barrier she had built, so no one knew until she owned up much later, when no re-enactment for the camera was possible. Here is the offending root over which she tripped, having carefully avoided it for an hour:

Your correspondent fell too, elegantly backwards whilst tugging on a branch requiring removal: the branch stayed put, all but the small bit at the end that remained in his hand as he gracefully went right down flat on his back. At least it was a soft landing!

We are a resourceful bunch, but self-amputation is not encouraged.

It was a more than usually musical session this time: scrub is important habitat for Nightingales to sing and nest in, and this led a few highly talented volunteers to consider that old song “A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square”. We agreed that it is inaccurate on two counts, as no nightingales have ever been reported as being present there, and it isn’t a square anyway. We considered what it might be; a trapezium perhaps? That makes the lyrics clumsier than in the original version, but we made a creditable effort, finding that a good rhyme for trapezium is magnesium, although that was hard to connect to nightingales. Something along the lines of

“Nightingales never sang in Berkeley Trapezium

People were offered skylarks, but it’s hard to please ‘em.”

We thought that added something to the song, but others might differ…

As the session drew to a close, a couple of Alpacas were brought along the boardwalk, clearly poetry fans (but I can’t think of a rhyme for Alpaca either).

A less than rousing chorus of “we’ll meet again” concluded the session, although it sounded to your correspondent’s ears more like “Whale meat again”, which we might be on if the lockdown lasts too long.

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks:

Dear Volunteers

This is to thank the volunteers who turned out on the Common today to cut back the scrub on the Areas B and X on the Warren Road side of the Common. We were lucky with the weather with only a couple of short showers and far lower wind speeds than had been forecast earlier in the week. The difference made by the work party was amazing. We were sawing, lopping, brush cutting, dragging, stacking and even hand weeding!  The end result is clear to see with the scrub taken back noticeably.

Obviously, with the latest Lockdown announced this may be the last work done on the Common for a while, but good progress has been made over the last few months despite all the restrictions placed on us. So a huge thank you goes to all of you who have worked so hard with us over this time.

Please stay safe and we hope to see you all again soon.

Regards,

Julie (and all the Team Leaders)  

Migrant invasion!

 

Autumn has arrived it seems: no mists to speak of, but plenty of mellow fruitfulness to feed the incoming migrant hordes. It feels as though we have particularly big numbers of Redwings arriving this year – presumably the prevailing wind from northerly directions is bringing them. Mixed in with those ‘seeping’ callers are increasing numbers of chattering Fieldfares – perhaps my favourite thrush. Blackbird numbers are building up too, and to my joy I saw my first skein of Pink-footed Geese flying over the Common the other day. Those hedges and bushes that have escaped untimely trimming are bearing good crops of berries, which the hungry newcomers are enjoying. Since the feast is on now, will there be any left when the weather turns nasty?

Volunteering on the Commons for NWT does not only involve cutting and clearing reeds, important though that is. We also do a lot of monitoring, of the presence of plants and wildlife, but also of how the sites change over time. An important part of this is Fixed Point Photography, which as its name implies involves taking a series of photographs of the same place, from exactly the same spot. We began this in 2012, at that time taking 17 photos once a month. Thankfully, under NWT it is now done once a quarter, although the number of photos taken each time has expanded to 26. Here are just a couple from the latest set; one of Area G and the other of The Pit.

On my recent tour of the area taking those photos I took advantage of the absence of my mud-absorbing dog to visit some of the wetter and more inaccessible places that I rarely get to. In one of those I discovered a dead tree, well-rotted and clearly snapped in half in the recent Great Storm.

I noticed it particularly, because it was the centre of attraction for hornets. They had made their nest half way up that tree trunk, perhaps because the rot made it easier to convert wood into their wonderful nests. That decision proved to be unwise, but they were soldiering on with a nest on two sites; one at the top of the truncated trunk, and the other flat on the ground,

They really are big insects with an impressive droning buzz, but provided you keep a respectful distance and move slowly and quietly, they cause you no trouble. (However, I imagine when the whole lot came crashing down in the raging storm they were pretty fired up, looking for somone, anyone, to blame.) I was surprised to see them so active still, but presumably they will mostly die off when the cold weather kicks in. Here are some of the exposed beautiful incubation chambers, and you can just about make out a few of the owners. 

Sunday 18^th saw another working party, and as seems to be frequent lately, your usual correspondent contrived to be elsewhere. A walk round School Common (including the Meadow) the following day confirmed what an excellent job had been done. NWT wants teams to consist of no more than 10 people at present, so with 19 volunteers available two distinct teams were formed; one dealing with clearing the grass mown on School Meadow the day before, and the other trimming back encroaching and overhanging vegetation along the footpath and Jubilee Boardwalk through School Common. Kevin and Julie jointly led the footpath team: here is Julie’s account of what they got up to.

Today we had a fantastic number of volunteers joining us, including the welcome return of some more familiar faces not seen since lockdown. So we split into two separate working parties. The School Common area was the subject of our attention today.

The pre-cut of the meadow area was done on Saturday and NWT George performed his magic with a chainsaw to cut up a fallen Ash on the meadow and several other trees made unsafe by the recent high winds on the footpath. 

The meadow group met by the picnic benches and the footpath group met in the car park opposite the school. It was like a school party making sure everyone got to the correct meeting place!

The footpath group was tasked with clearing the edges of the jubilee boardwalk and the footpath running the length of School Common. We were down to one brushcutter as the other one is away being repaired, so that was deployed first along the jubilee boardwalk and then along the path down to the meadow area. 

Two other volunteers, armed with loppers and saws, tackled the jubilee boardwalk. The rest of us tackled the footpath. Pairs with loppers and saws started at opposite ends and another pair collected branches and cuttings and heaped them well away from the path.

The first ‘heaps’ were artistically wound together to form desirable wildlife hotels.... 

Partway into the first half of the session a cry went up from our pairing near to the school end of the path - they had disturbed a wasp nest. Luckily they are a couple as a sweatshirt came flying off as the offending beasts were chased off and stings to one of the party investigated. It was not a photo opportunity as it would have raised eyebrows as to what was going on in a wooded area in Lower Southrepps! Luckily the victim was not too badly wounded and bravely carried on the work in hand.

We broke for distanced refreshments at half time. This gave the two parties a chance to have a bit of a get together in the now clear picnic table area.

Then the footpath group set off back down the path to resume the task in hand. 

For some it was a longer lonelier walk back to the jubilee boardwalk.

The second half went quickly and the heaps got slightly less artistic as time ran out!

After two hours it was incredible to see what had been achieved. The jubilee boardwalk is completely clear of overhanging branches and brambles: 

The footpath is clear to walk through without fear of being impaled on branches or tripping over brambles:

And the path to the meadow is clear and inviting: 

A magnificent effort all round!

One sad thing to mention is the curse of the beer can; we found so many on the footpath. There is a bin by the school car park area (by the play area)....this litter is not good for us to see or for the small wildlife. We shall have to start spraying them soon like the dog waste on the SSSI.

 

Margaret and Kevin led the ‘Meadow Team’

Here are some images of the area before Saturday’s preparatory work began:

Work on the Meadow was a game of two halves with team B clearing Bracken at one end and cutting up the branches of the ash tree that George had felled for us on Saturday, a casualty of the high winds.

Team G raked the grass at the picnic bench end.  Over-hanging vegetation was tamed and the entrance-way was brush cut by Brian, then cleared away by the Meadow team.

Beautiful autumn colour and sunshine after a damp start...

Here’s how the meadow looked after all that hard work. 

Here is the team leaders’ message of thanks:

A tremendous thank you to the two teams we had working on the common today. The meadow looks wonderful and if anyone wants to have a socially distanced picnic then the benches if somewhat damp are there to be enjoyed. For those who cleared the footpath through school common, what a job! The good folk of Southrepps no longer have to duck and dive their way from one end to the other. I hope you all enjoyed the few rays of sun that we had. A fine collection of thermos flasks are now appearing. I think I should have bought shares!

Thank you all and hope to see you again in two weeks.

Take care.

The Team leaders

 

And finally, some of Julie’s lovely pictures to prove it really is worth all the effort: