Dancing with nettles

 In keeping with this season of drought the well of excuses has run completely dry, so your correspondent returned to the fray against Himalayan Balsam this morning. I’d like to say it was to great acclaim, but in truth any acclaim was hard to spot.

11 of us turned out today, which is a good number for this time of year. Here is a selection of that mini-throng, queuing to collect the bags for holding the extracted plants.

Looking like a troop of tea-pickers, we set to with a merry song in our hearts.

Some stayed in the shade, whilst others ventured out into the sunshine

                  

It was at least as hot as it had been for many days, but with the added joy of higher humidity thanks to some overnight rain, the main function of which was to wet the long vegetation through which we had to wade. Getting wet trousers is not the only hazard; HB as we like to call the enemy likes to grow amongst nettles, so a great deal of graceful pirouetting went on. Either we’re a stoical lot, or simply nobody got a face-full of stingers as they bent down to carefully uproot the target plants, as no agonized yells were heard. 

The inevitable contest for finding the tallest plant got off to a shaky start. 

But it looks more like a tree trunk on this one! 

This is quite tall, but… 

How about this one?

It’s quite easy to get lost in here!

It’s been noticeable how few insects there seem to be about, but a male orange-tip butterfly was spotted, and it was especially nice to find this female broad-bodied chaser dragonfly. 

We did well, with two people needed to carry a full sack…

... but there’s plenty left for next time.

And here’s Team Leader Margaret telling us how much fun that will be. 

Here’s her message of thanks

Thank you to the 11 volunteers who turned out on a hot and humid morning to take part in our continued battle against the Himalayan Balsam. Some volunteers sensibly stayed in the shade pulling up plants we had previously missed or had grown in the last two weeks. Others ventured further into the reed bed in the full glare of the sun. After an hour we had to drag ourselves away from the cries of just one more! So if anyone would like to join in we will be back, same time, same place, in two weeks when the plants will be even easier to spot.

Thank you all so much as we have never managed such a good clearance.

Margaret (for the team leaders)

A couple of summers ago work began at Pit Common to create an area to be rich in wild flowers. The seeds to get this started were brought to the site in ‘green hay’ from another NWT reserve, and it’s great to see that this summer that work is bearing beautiful fruit. There are many Ox-eye daisies, some yellow rattle and red clover, and no doubt many other species for identification by the more botanically-aware than me.

Elsewhere, a great sighting recently has been this fabulous Bee orchid. 

If you wonder how well or badly different bird species are doing in your locality, the British Trust for Ornithology has launched a new feature on their website allowing you to see just that. Using data from the Birdtrack sightings reporting database and the most recent Bird Atlas (a stocktake of all UK birds conducted during 2007–11), it reveals that since 1970, 11 breeding bird species have been lost from the Southrepps area. A further 4 species have declined in abundance since at least 1990, when they first started measuring abundance in atlases. It’s not all bad news however, as the system also reveals the breeding species that have actually increased in abundance locally.

It's well worth a look, at data.bto.org/doorstep-birds/

Balsam bashed some more

 

The well of tissue-paper thin excuses not having quite run dry yet, your usual correspondent was once again fortuitously absent from the delight torture that is known as ‘The Bashing of the Balsam’. As previously explained, this involves the removal by hand of countless emerging Himalayan Balsam plants before they get the chance to catapult their seeds into the surrounding area and watercourses, facilitating their relentless spread. Quite frankly, it’s best left to those who derive the most pleasure from it, and so today’s report comes courtesy of Team Leader Julie, who we can be sure had a thoroughly enjoyable time…

Ten volunteers arrived for today’s extreme weeding session. We started back where the team worked two weeks ago as more Himalayan Balsam had shown itself:

We then moved over towards the site boundary - lots of nettles (I can vouch for that - ouch!).

Some of the plants are definitely hunting in packs in this area: 

….and getting bigger.. 

A bit of father-son competition emerged -“mine’s bigger than yours” -  not judging from that one! 

After an hour of being bent double we called it a day with the agreement being that there is another work party required in two weeks - there is plenty left to be pulled! The bigger ones will probably be around 3-4 foot by then! So, looking like Snow White’s dwarves singing “Hi-Ho” we headed off to empty our bags at the carefully controlled dump site. 

What a haul again!! Literally thousands of HB plants pulled. 

The central area of the SSSI is looking beautiful with an array of plant life. 

Unfortunately, where there were a lot of marsh orchids appearing a few weeks ago - very few have made it to flowering - deers nibbling the heads off is suspected. But I did manage to spot one peeking through. Though it’s the Ragged Robin starring at present I think. 

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Thank you to the ten volunteers who came this morning to continue the great balsam fight. As predicted the plants had more than doubled in size but despite this many thousands were pulled and shoved into the waiting bags. We really do appreciate the help you give. I hope all spines have uncurled and you are all having a well-earned rest.

We return to the fray in two weeks’ time, when they will have doubled in size again.

Thank you

Margaret  (for the team leaders)