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)