In praise of the Wellington boot

 

“If it wasnae for your wellies, where would you be?

You'd be in the hospital or infirmary

Cause you would have a dose of the flu or even pleurisy

If you didnae have your feet in your wellies!”

Billy Connolly used those immortal lines to illustrate the deprived nature of his Glasgow upbringing, but those of us who volunteer on Southrepps Common know how true they are. Our most recent working party was another foray into the jungly domain of the dreaded and dreadful Himalayan Balsam. To reach a rich vein of it, a tributary to the mighty Fox’s Beck had to be crossed, and the chance of filling up your wellies with a portion of the Beck was depressingly high. However, a cunningly contrived temporary bridge consisting of a fallen and rotting tree limb allowed three plucky pioneers to cross the raging torrent, albeit tentatively and helped by the overhanging branches. Four others kept their wellies relatively dry by pushing through the reeds to the Beastly Balsam clustering on the nearer side of The Beck. 

This was the first attendance of very welcome new recruit Andrew, here proudly displaying his inaugural trophy Balsam plant.

Given that we had visited this very spot a fortnight ago, it was depressing to find a significant new growth of plants; although small, they're still capable of sporting flowers and therefore producing seeds.

From the surprisingly small to the as-expected tall; we reckoned these checked in at about nine or ten feet!

Despite a further seven volunteer hours being put in, making a total of 68.5 hours on this task this summer, there are still a lot of hard to reach plants – but at least we’ve done a lot to control Balsam's spread for another year.

Meanwhile, the wild flower patch at Pit Common was also cut by two other volunteers, to be raked off in a few days’ time once the seeds have had a chance to drop back onto the area. So it looks like it’s a success!

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Thank you so much to the volunteers who came again today. It was hard work as the Balsam has got taller and the reeds, hops and cleavers thicker! As we are now entering the cutting season that will be the last Balsam Bash, so thank you all for your hard work. Progress is being made and we are stopping it taking over the site.

I would also like to thank the chaps who cut the meadow at the Pit this morning. The arisings are being left to allow the seeds to drop and then they will be raked off.

Hope to see many of you next Sunday.

Margaret for the team leaders.

    Before that session though, last Saturday our three keenest Balsam Bashers, along with NWT’s Annabel, insisted on enjoying it yet more at the Warren Road end and then at the edge of the Beck on the other side of the boardwalk, clocking up six more volunteer hours.

At the Warren Road end they discovered this chrysalis, very close to where a peacock caterpillar had been found on 2^nd July, as recorded on this very blog. So we’re pretty sure because of that and comparing it with online photos that it’s going to grow up to be a Peacock butterfly, probably later this summer, ready to spend the winter hibernating.

They created a new heap for the stuff to decompose in, with two further bags joining the existing one back behind the Information Point.

They reported that the Beck is flowing well where a big branch is down across it - we saw this a while back and wondered if it would be an issue - but apparently not! 

Pulling up invasive plants and cutting reed is not the only volunteering we do on NWT’s behalf. We also keep a close eye on the flora and fauna found on the five commons, including passing on to the Trust the sightings reported on the whiteboard on the Information Point at the Lower Street end of the boardwalk.

At around 500, plants represent by far the largest number of species known to be present (invertebrates might outnumber them, but so far have not been thoroughly surveyed). In addition to the ad-hoc reporting of sightings, every year a small group of dedicated botanists led by Team Leader Sue do a regular survey of the main Common, for onward reporting to NWT and Natural England (the body which oversees Sites of Special Scientific Interest, such as this one). Prior to 2020 the surveys were undertaken by specialist ecologists on behalf of Natural England, but since then it has been down to our resident experts.

The plots to be surveyed, known as quadrats, are marked out with canes in the central part of the Common, concentrating particularly on the range of exciting flowering plants and intriguingly named mosses such as Yellow Starry Feather moss and Rusty Hook-moss growing there.

There are buried metal markers for precise location of the right spots - hence Sue can be seen wandering around with a metal detector to find where to place the canes.

Here are a normal pink Fragrant orchid and a more unusual white Fragrant orchid found during the most recent survey, near, but not quite in a survey plot.

When you are puzzled by the sight of a group of people staring intently at the ground in the middle of the Common on a hot summer’s day, now you’ll know what they’re up to!