Area G revisited

 Today’s work party saw us moving on from Area B (beside Warren Road) to the central part of the Common, known prosaically as Area G. The problem with this patch is that the reedbed wants to infiltrate it, but that would be at the expense of the botanical community there that forms a major part of its SSSI designation. In order to thwart those reeds in their expansionist ambitions, the word from Natural England is that it needs to be cut now – so cut it now we must.

After a remarkably dry August, we’ve recently had a few major downpours, so the ground is very wet already – particularly as it slopes towards the Beck.

We were blessed with another fine morning; warm but not uncomfortably so. We were delighted to greet Jo, another very welcome new volunteer. Here’s the scene greeting the arriving volunteers.

There’s also encouraging interest in learning to operate Grillo. Last time we highlighted Team Leader Michelle doing this; today it was Andrew. Here he is receiving instruction…

and then flying solo…

… before the old master regained the controls.

It’s not the job for everyone; this short video shows how much effort it can take.

The vegetation on this area tends not to grow high (although the reeds try their best), so when it’s cut it tends to be quite light to move onto the drag sheets.

The half-time break arrived right on time; the biscuits this time were dark chocolate digestives, so could not have been better. All took satisfaction from viewing the results of their labours so far. The sharp-eyed amongst regular readers will spot at the far right of the picture honorary Team Leader and Commons legend John, who had dropped in to join us for a catch-up.

On returning to work after the break, the company was cheered by the sequence of muddy mishaps affecting a couple of us. Firstly, Team Leader Margaret discovered the depth of what she described as “ *** great sinkhole”

Then your own correspondent found another. This one was far deeper and hungrier, first filling my right welly with unpleasant smelling water, and then removing it altogether. My, how they all laughed! Here follows a selection from the many images taken of the unfortunate event, and even explicit video footage.

Much earlier in the session, we two unfortunates had been unceremoniously deposited backwards onto a dump site while we were helping tip out a sheet. Fortunately, no camera was present that time. A bit later, your correspondent was once again in trouble, this time for forgetting to hook the winch rope onto the sheet about to be dragged away. Only after the rope and its hook had travelled effortlessly for a few feet was the error discovered. It’s not all bad though, for I do like my whistle, and this was the perfect opportunity for a loud blast to tell the winchers to cease winching. Today was not my finest hour (or two)!

Fans (if any exist) of the banter pervading our activities will be glad to hear that when the question was put to the winch team if they were ready, the answer was “born ready”. Ready for what was not specified, and further enquiries were deemed unwise. The much-loved singing so often reported here was sadly not in much evidence this time, despite Noel’s ‘Clash’ tee shirt.

Lots of frogs were seen, including this one:

The session finished before there was time to drag off the final load, so that’s left there on its own for the next fortnight.

With the trolleys and wheelbarrows all fully loaded…

… we left Area G looking like this.

And a cheerful party of long-tailed tits waved us off from the car park.

 

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Again I have the pleasant task of thanking you all for your hard work this morning. Weren't we lucky with the weather after the brief cold snap. You were all fantastic as usual. A warm welcome to Jo and hope you weren't too tired. Well done Andrew you seem to be a natural with grillo. If anyone else would like to learn more about working grillo or the winch do let us know.

We will be returning to the central area in two weeks’ time and we hope you will be able to join us then.

Thanks again.

Margaret for the team leaders.

 

It’s good to see that there are now surprisingly large numbers of Red Admiral

and Large White butterflies. Appropriately named for the location Common Darter dragonflies are still darting about a few inches above the boardwalk. After their quiet period of moulting, some birds have started singing again; robin and wren particularly, but also some possibly newly arrived chiffchaffs. Meanwhile swallows are gathering in numbers preparatory to their long migration to Africa. Lots of them are hawking low over the fields, which must indicate that there are at least some insects for them fuel up on.

Area G plays host to a lot of specialist flowers. Although the area is now being cut, this does not appear to be affecting  their numbers. Although some are inevitably cut while still in flower, because we only cut a portion of the area at each visit, separated by two weeks, plenty remain to set seed. This picture includes Grass of Parnassus (the white ones), Devil’s Bit Scabious (blue) and Marsh Lousewort (red). There are still plenty to be seen!