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:

Grizzly executes a pirouette (we had one of those days!)

 As we covered in the previous posting of this blog, the Great (annoyingly not deemed worthy of a name) Storm created a lot of damage on The Commons. Walking around during last week, I found that School Common seemed to have suffered the most. The ground is covered in the debris of leaves, twigs and branches ripped from its trees: mostly Sycamores as far as I could see. But Oaks had also suffered badly here and in the surrounbding area. This substantial tree is the biggest casualty I have come across on our little patch: such a shame to see a big specimen laid low, but it's all part of the cycle of life and it will contribute its essence to the local environment for years to come.

The last blog posting described the working party that had been postponed from the previous, stormy day. We had cut and cleared half of the central area G, with help from NWT warden George and some colleagues, and they returned two days later to complete the task, just in time to meet the deadline set by Natural England.

I had absented myself from the team for this week's session at Pit Common, so our worthy alternative correspondent Julie takes up the story:

The aim today was to cut back the growth and scrub around the Pit. The day started with grey skies and rain...and Grizzly obviously decided that it did not wish to perform under these conditions, performing a perfect, but unscheduled, pirouette on the road on the way to the Pit. The decision was taken to return it to the container before it decided to do anything more spectacular. Perhaps it likes going off with George to be repaired!  

We decided to take the mower along with two brushcutters to tackle the site. However, our equipment problems were not over yet! One of the brushcutters was proving difficult to start and the mower lost power to drive the wheels, causing much scratching of heads! 

It seems George will have to take the mower for repair as well!

It was put to use.... though it took some pushing through the long grass manually. 

The rain stopped and we soon had both brushcutters going so we were in full swing.  

We had a team cutting back scrub up the pathway from the Pit.

Another team was raking grass onto a sheet and hand pulling it to a dump site.

Before we knew it, we had done an hour and it was time to down tools and have a well earned break. 

At least it gave Mr Toad the chance to evaluate the situation! 

The second half of our session saw the return of the rain and a vandal in our midst! 

I have to say it was your correspondent! I spotted a chunk of wood that had rotted off the leg of the bench and then realised that the whole leg was totally rotten. I think anyone sitting on it may have landed with a bump! So the bench was removed. It will be replaced, but maybe not until next spring. Definitely 'one of those days!'. 

However, despite the weather and technical issues the volunteers worked extremely hard and did a fantastic job of clearing the area. 

The path up to the field is clear and welcoming for walkers to pass through without fear of hitting their heads.

The area around the Pit looks well groomed.

Time to pack up and call it a day.   

Here is the message of thanks from the Team Leaders:

Dear Volunteers

Many thanks to all the volunteers who turned out in the rainy conditions to tackle the grass area around the Pit. Despite Grizzly not wanting to join us this morning we persevered using brush cutters and lawnmower and we were able to achieve what we wanted, which was a very tidy looking area.

Many thanks

Kevin, John, Margaret and Julie