The season begins!

 

It’s almost mid-August: the birdsong has more or less ceased, and the last few swifts are setting off on their migration back to Africa, where they spend the majority of their year. No doubt last weekend’s foul weather persuaded them it was time to go. Mark Cocker is a fabulous writer – one of the best of the current crop of nature writers – and his latest book is centred on these weird birds, of which there are about 100 species. It’s called One Midsummer’s Day: swifts and the story of life on Earth” and it, like the birds themselves, takes many loops and swoops around not only their story, but also touches on so much else. Cocker writes about the very early history of our planet and the emergence of life; the extraordinary amount of insect food to be found high in the sky by the swifts; the famously huge distances they travel in the course of their lives; the links between people and swifts; the nature of (and in) the atmosphere; and the vital importance of plants to us all. The swift here stands for the entirety of life in all its raging glory; in marvelling at it and how it’s come to be the way it is, we’re invited to marvel and care for every one of the “other 8.7 million varieties of earthling that we live alongside”. The final short chapter powerfully lists some of the many and complex problems facing Mother Earth and her inhabitants, and pleads for us to change our ways. It’s taken billions of years for us all to get to this point; it would be criminal to make it stop now. One Midsummer’s Day is a stunning piece of work, perhaps Cocker’s best, and of course it’s available from the library.

The first part of the main Common to be cut each season is the central section, and although the start of the job was delayed due to the previous weekend’s deluge, 17 volunteers converged on the site yesterday to do our bit to help keep the world in balance.

Before it all got fully under way, we here see two Johns looking at Grillo the mower in a puzzled way; ditto Team Leader Kevin with a rake

This is the area where many special plants grow, so it needs to be cut annually to ensure it is not overgrown by reeds or alder trees – but also care has to be taken not to chop off the heads of plants still to flower or set seed. The recent heavy rain had certainly made the going soft, but not enough to cause Grillo trouble, nor to get the volunteers excessively muddy. (Not being sure if we would have anyone to operate the winch, and bearing in mind the boggy nature of the ground, Noel had said we’d be ok with a pair of Clydesdales in snow shoes!)

As usual, the work was divided by those who went to mow…

… those who picked up that which had been mown…

… and those who went to worship that which had been mown.

Tea break came, to general relief. The weather wasn’t excessively warm, but it was muggy.

Noel announced he had come dressed as a Ghost Buster, but the general view was that he looked (if you squinted) like Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Although instead of operating a high-performance warplane, he was on the winch, so we renamed him Top Winch. You can see he has a blank label on his overalls. It should say ‘Maverick’ apparently, but we decided ‘Balsam’ was more appropriate. You decide.

Here we see ‘Balsam’ and friends struggling to overturn a laden drag sheet.

We were excited to find a Wasp spider . These are Samuel’s excellent picture of the striking arachnid.

Other wildlife seen today included possibly the area’s last two remaining swifts, a vole, a field mouse, a frog found by Julie on a drag sheet as she set it out at the start of the session…

… and a common lizard photographed by Team Leader Margaret. It’s nice to see one not on the boardwalk.

The relief at dumping the final load of the day is plain for all to see.

When we had finished, the area looked like this; plenty has been done, but there’s plenty more for next week! Taking into account the preparatory work before the main session, a further 41 hours of volunteer effort has been done on NWT’s behalf.

There are usually people walking across the boardwalk while we work, and this time a gentleman was there who had attended the local school during the second world war. He therefore knows the Common well, and recalled how School Common had been used during the war for military exercises, with some soldiers wearing German uniforms for the sake of realism. He also remembers the time an American bomber made an emergency landing in a nearby field: it was stripped of everything heavy so that it could take off back to its base for repairs.

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks:

Hello all

Thank you to the 17 volunteers who turned out today for our rescheduled work party.  It was a little humid, but the full sun and rain stayed away, so conditions were not too bad. The reed in this area is much lighter than on the reed bed and it was dry, so it was moved very quickly - we achieved an amazing amount and Grillo was kept busy cutting to keep up!

Thank you also to the three Grillo operators who worked yesterday to do the pre-cut and to clear the dump site.

We will return next week (as originally scheduled) to tackle more in the central area.

Have a good week.

 Regards, Julie (for the Team Leaders)

 

And finally, I had never heard of scorpion flies let alone known that they can be found here, but these photos were recently taken in a garden adjacent to the main Common. Fearsome to look at, but harmless and fabulous!