Two hedges and a flock of pie-wipes

The last few days of wandering along our surrounding footpaths and quiet lanes have been pleasingly productive of birds. Some 750 Pink-footed geese flew over me one late afternoon; two ravens were duelling with five red kites, all having been disturbed by the leaf clearing train on the stretch of railway parallel to Long Lane one morning; and perhaps best of all, a pair of whooper swans were occupying a straw-covered field just yesterday. Despite a fusillade of shotgun reports that scattered huge numbers of rooks, jackdaws and pigeons, the swans remained in place, albeit very attentive with upstretched necks (and those necks do stretch a long way).

Attentive and retentive readers of this blog might recall that last time I described watching a kestrel hunting near the once-white, now red gates on the currently inaccurately named Whitegates Road. This time the same road has yielded a flock of at least 100 lapwings, mixed in with a bunch of gulls on the cereal-sown field alongside that productive highway. Mark Cocker, in his magnificent Birds Britannica lists 23 vernacular names for this bird, but apparently there are many more. There’s the prosaic Green plover; the descriptive name derived from its mournful call, peewit; the Shetland name of Tieve’s Nacket, and Norfolk’s Pie-wipe. Its scientific name is Vanellus vanellus. Whatever the name, they’re always a joy to see: modern agricultural practice doesn’t suit them as breeding birds here, but at least they visit us in decent numbers for the winter, so we can at least be glad of that. They’re unlikely to settle on our common, but they can often be spotted (and heard) flying overhead, and I remember seeing a solitary one on the central area a few years ago; I suspect it was unwell, or had fallen out with its flock: too much pee and not enough wit perhaps?

Today, grey and dreary though it was, 18 volunteers turned up at the Common to do some serious cutting back of the willow trees that line the boardwalk between the car park and our storage container. The aim was to knock them back far enough to stop them getting in the way of people walking along the boardwalk, without us having to revisit this particular stretch for at least a couple of years. However, because we’re talking about willows here, that might be a tad ambitious…

It looks as though at least two volunteers emerged from within the willowy tangle, like lost World War Two soldiers left behind in the jungle for decades.

While some wielded saws and loppers, others took control of the results…

… for them to be used to create two dead hedges. This one bears the mark of your correspondent’s contributions…

… It perhaps lacks the charm and artistry of the other hedge, of which its creators were justifiably proud.

This hedge lines what can only be described as a grotto, at the end of which you might expect to find a stoutly built kindly old gentleman in a red dressing gown – but not yet.

Every so often, a loud creaking noise could be heard. The obvious initial thought was that it was a volunteer’s back giving out, but no, it always turned out to be a tree yelling in protest at the removal of one of its intrusive limbs.

One particularly well cleared area was a touch on the boggy side. As the official photographer for the day, I did point out to those working there that it would be an especially good place from a comedy point of view if anyone fell over there. No-one did.

As well as trimming back the overhanging willows, the reeds also lining the boardwalk have a tendency to fall over and block the route, so a crack brush cutter team set out to trim some of those back too. Here they are making final preparations for the fray.

And here’s the result, for walkers to appreciate and enjoy.

We’re often visited by a string (is that the right word?) of Alpacas with their attendants, but not this time. However, a group of about 20 walkers came through, and were very gracious about being held up by a recently felled branch. Not this one, but you get the picture.

Apparently, they were from Norwich, but it wasn’t clear if they had walked all the way.

One of the joys of volunteering here is the group spirit, and there are lots of opportunities for enjoyment. Take for instance the disconnected branch that was prevented from following apple victim Isaac Newton’s gravity thing straight to the centre of the earth by still being attached to its parent tree by the sort of stringy thing that Tarzan would swing around the jungle on. With the branch dangling and swinging there, he who cut it down pretended to throw it to me, your correspondent – but the stringy thing (Honeysuckle perhaps?) only allowed it so far towards me, before grabbing it back to its starting position. My, how we laughed – several times! 

Here is team leader Kevin’s message of thanks:

Hello

To all of the 18 volunteers who turned out this morning in the damp conditions to lop, saw, drag, clear and brush cut, a big thank you. As always, when there is a degree of free rein in attacking and cutting back the trees encroaching the boardwalk, it was tackled with great gusto! This has resulted in the trees being taken well back from the boardwalk and will make walking along there so much nicer. Well done, also, to the brush cutter team for clearing the last of the overhanging reeds from the boardwalk.

We look forward to seeing you in a fortnight’s time when we will be starting on the reed bed.

Regards,

Kevin

Hanging out

 A few days ago I was watching a kestrel hunting, close to the red gates we still call the white gates (perhaps they will fade with age to ease our confusion). Basil (the dog) was less interested in it than me, but suffered the interruption to his walk with commendable and indeed unusual equanimity. The bird was hanging almost motionless, head into a stiff breeze, a hangover from an Atlantic storm, or trough, or perhaps my favourite meteorological express, a depression losing its identity.

Oblivious to our presence, the kestrel was intently focused on something edible on the grass verge about 20 feet below it, and every few seconds it dropped a few feet, stealthily descending on what it hoped would be its lunch. Every feather had a job to do, and all of them were doing it perfectly. At times it didn’t look as if any needed the slightest adjustment. Eventually, when perhaps no more than 6 feet above the ground it plunged and disappeared from my view behind the verge. Although it stayed down and out of sight for a while, I don’t think it was successful; when it rose again it was clearly carrying nothing, and recommenced hovering in the same place. In the arms race between hunter and prey the hunter loses more often than not, which is just as well, as if it was the other way round there would soon be no prey left. It struck me what a wonderful version of perfection that bird was; totally attuned to its environment and coping brilliantly with what the weather threw at it. Not for nothing did Gerard Manley Hopkins call it ‘Windhover’.

On Sunday I was hanging out too, with 14 friends on the Common to do a some more volunteering for Norfolk Wildlife Trust on a beautiful autumn morning, with just enough mist to be atmospheric, without it being a nuisance. No kestrel joined us, but happily a few skeins of geese flew over. This comes as something of a relief, as I have not seen many lately and I was beginning to fear they may have been badly affected by the deadly strain of Avian Influenza that is ravaging wild and farmed bird populations.

We’ve considered this question before, but I still don’t understand why it is that the act of using a brush is called ‘brushing’, but the act of using a broom is not ‘brooming’. Two of us spent the first half hour of the session both brooming and brushing on Jubilee boardwalk. A recent first-time visitor to this thoroughfare might legitimately have asked, ‘Where’s the boardwalk then?’ The answer was that it was festering under a thick wet blanket of cast-off leaves.

And here’s how it looked after our attention.

On School Meadow, the rest of the group were lopping overhanging scrub and dragging sheets bearing the results to an area to dump it in presciently created last year. 

Grizzly driver John cut the grass and dead bracken, before moving on to the path leading to the meadow from the main path through the woods.

A team leader’s whistle summoned us to our refreshment break, some ten minutes or so earlier than usual, to allow us time to be ready for our act of remembrance. And so, it being Remembrance Sunday, at 11.00 we joined in with the nationwide two-minute silence. It was an affecting pause in the half-time chatter, giving each of us a moment to reflect on the nature of sacrifice and loss, and how we have been affected personally.

The solemn pause over, the assembled group naturally returned to chatter for a few more minutes. In my corner that ranged from the rare pleasure of having a grey wagtail or house sparrows in your garden, to the similar scarcity of NHS dentists.

Noel is one of our stalwarts, and a very popular member of our team, so we have missed him recently during his enforced absence due to a gammy leg. It was therefore great to see him pedalling up on his fabulous folding bike. He might have been regretting his return when he found some barbed wire tangled in the bracken round the edge of the meadow. Team leader and first aider Kevin stepped into action to clean Noel’s finger up and apply a plaster. It illustrates the reason stout gloves are recommended (not that they stopped damage to Noel’s finger - but perhaps prevented it being worse).

Here's the offending tangle of undergrowth.

After the break Grizzly was then employed to trim back the edges of the main path through School Common, keeping at bay for another few months the ever-encroaching brambles and nettles.

Sheila appears to have found a hat for the elves at Christmas …

Having done all we had come to do the meadow now looks like this:

We then dispersed – or most of us, including your weary correspondent. A few remained however, to take the tools back to the store. Sadly, all did not go to plan, as Grizzly decided to stop opposite the school on the road, make a rather unpleasant noise and jump gear into reverse. It then stopped and did not want to restart - the temperamental thing loves to create a drama when it’s on the road!

They were left with a full trolley, broken Grizzly and a brushcutter on the side of the road. All this picture lacks is speech bubbles with lots of *!!** symbols representing very bad language. Team Leader Julie takes up the tale of woe:

Kevin chose this time to try and encourage a rather unwilling recruit for brushcutter training!

In the end a willing band of volunteers helped me to get the trolley and brushcutter back to the container, and Kevin and John managed to coax Grizzly back to life.

Grizzly hadn’t finished though as it managed to hook some wire on the boards at the container entrance. It was stopped to untangle the wire and when restarted refused to move…..until it was pointed out that the handbrake was on…the driver looked a little sheepish at this!

Luckily the pesky machine was finally parked in the container leaving us to deal with the wire on the boards. It went well until we ran out of staples and it took three of us to work out how to load new ones! Where is Margaret when you need her - our staple gun expert!

We all needed to go home for a lie down in a dark room I think!!

Here’s her message of thanks:

Hello all

Thank you to the 15 volunteers who met to work on School Common this morning. The team made short work of clearing the bracken, grass and overhanging scrub on the area by the picnic tables. Overhanging branches and scrub were also cleared from the path through School Common.

We observed a 2 minute silence at 11am and all had time for private thoughts with just the bird song to be heard.

Extra thanks go to the volunteers who were still around when Grizzly broke down on the way back to the container and helped to get the other equipment back to the container whilst the 'beast' was coaxed back to life.

We will meet again in two weeks’ time  - possibly at the Pit but we will confirm this nearer to the time.

Regards,

Julie (for the TLs)