Grizzly executes a pirouette (we had one of those days!)

 As we covered in the previous posting of this blog, the Great (annoyingly not deemed worthy of a name) Storm created a lot of damage on The Commons. Walking around during last week, I found that School Common seemed to have suffered the most. The ground is covered in the debris of leaves, twigs and branches ripped from its trees: mostly Sycamores as far as I could see. But Oaks had also suffered badly here and in the surrounbding area. This substantial tree is the biggest casualty I have come across on our little patch: such a shame to see a big specimen laid low, but it's all part of the cycle of life and it will contribute its essence to the local environment for years to come.

The last blog posting described the working party that had been postponed from the previous, stormy day. We had cut and cleared half of the central area G, with help from NWT warden George and some colleagues, and they returned two days later to complete the task, just in time to meet the deadline set by Natural England.

I had absented myself from the team for this week's session at Pit Common, so our worthy alternative correspondent Julie takes up the story:

The aim today was to cut back the growth and scrub around the Pit. The day started with grey skies and rain...and Grizzly obviously decided that it did not wish to perform under these conditions, performing a perfect, but unscheduled, pirouette on the road on the way to the Pit. The decision was taken to return it to the container before it decided to do anything more spectacular. Perhaps it likes going off with George to be repaired!  

We decided to take the mower along with two brushcutters to tackle the site. However, our equipment problems were not over yet! One of the brushcutters was proving difficult to start and the mower lost power to drive the wheels, causing much scratching of heads! 

It seems George will have to take the mower for repair as well!

It was put to use.... though it took some pushing through the long grass manually. 

The rain stopped and we soon had both brushcutters going so we were in full swing.  

We had a team cutting back scrub up the pathway from the Pit.

Another team was raking grass onto a sheet and hand pulling it to a dump site.

Before we knew it, we had done an hour and it was time to down tools and have a well earned break. 

At least it gave Mr Toad the chance to evaluate the situation! 

The second half of our session saw the return of the rain and a vandal in our midst! 

I have to say it was your correspondent! I spotted a chunk of wood that had rotted off the leg of the bench and then realised that the whole leg was totally rotten. I think anyone sitting on it may have landed with a bump! So the bench was removed. It will be replaced, but maybe not until next spring. Definitely 'one of those days!'. 

However, despite the weather and technical issues the volunteers worked extremely hard and did a fantastic job of clearing the area. 

The path up to the field is clear and welcoming for walkers to pass through without fear of hitting their heads.

The area around the Pit looks well groomed.

Time to pack up and call it a day.   

Here is the message of thanks from the Team Leaders:

Dear Volunteers

Many thanks to all the volunteers who turned out in the rainy conditions to tackle the grass area around the Pit. Despite Grizzly not wanting to join us this morning we persevered using brush cutters and lawnmower and we were able to achieve what we wanted, which was a very tidy looking area.

Many thanks

Kevin, John, Margaret and Julie  

It’s not called a mire for nothing.

 Have you noticed the large numbers of bees on ivy flowers lately? They are probably Ivy Bees; I have certainly seen lots, nesting singly but in in companiable numbers in the sandy banks and lane verges in the area. According to the excellent Wildlife Trusts website, “The ivy bee was first recorded in the UK in 2001, and has now been found in much of Southern England and Wales, and in the Channel Islands. As suggested by its common name, Ivy is the main plant used by this bee for pollen. It is seen when ivy is in flower, from early September to early November. Ivy bees nest in loose, light or sandy soil on southern-facing banks and cliffs with ivy nearby for foraging. They are solitary bees, but when conditions are suitable, there may be thousands of nests in the same area.” (https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/bees-and-wasps/ivy-bee )

I can’t say I have seen any on The Common this year, but they have certainly been found here in previous years, and given that they are in Southrepps in such numbers it seems highly likely they are also on our patch. Team Leader Margaret took this picture somewhere on The Common in 2018; as can be seen, they can be mistaken for wasps, and like them they are important pollinators of ivy.

The picture is one of many on the NWT’s website of species photographed on our commons. Use the search options on https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/gallery/all-photos to see what else we have put up there – often carried over from our previous Southrepps Commons Trust site. More pictures will always be welcome!

I wrote the above just before The Great Storm arrived (did it have a name?), when the weather was still good enough to be classed an Indian Summer. At the weekend, that abruptly switched to winter, without stopping off at autumn on the way, dumping prodigious quantities of water on us, accompanied by three days’ worth of terribly damaging gales. The effects of the tempest have been all too clear to see, with many trees down, roads blocked and power cuts. The torrential driving rain may have flooded some of the tiny burrows the Ivy Bees had dug for themselves and no doubt their young, so it’s possible the population took a bad knock: we’ll have to see if any are about when the sun returns. Dry ponds are now full; in the case of The Pit, of very brown muddy water, looking suspiciously like the same colour as the surrounding, now somewhat depleted, fields.

Team Leader Julie took a relaxing ramble round the Common today after a hectic day at work, and has sent in some photos. She found signs of flattened reeds and fallen trees and broken branches on the main common and school common.

But nature had left a love heart in the berries...or are her eyes seeing things?

On Saturday morning I noticed in my garden the most waterlogged and bedraggled Wood Pigeon I have ever seen. Bird feathers are waterproofed thanks to an oil from the gland at the base of the tail, applied during preening, but either this bird’s oil supply had dried up or it was simply overwhelmed by the vast amount of water that had been poured over it. It was capable of flight, but it was obvious that it was more of an effort than usual. I then went to the Rec. Ground to give the dog a run somewhere without the risk of a tree falling on us, and near the Village Hall was the untidy mess that passes for a Wood Pigeon’s nest, lying at the foot of a wind-battered tree. A perhaps half-grown nestling lay soggily dead beside it. These birds breed all through the year, and must therefore cope with weather-induced calamities, but presumably the benefits outweigh the risks. It was also sad to see the corpse of a badger at the side of the main road this morning, close to the Stump Cross junction, killed this time no doubt by a car rather than the weather.

The appalling weather in the few days before the working party scheduled for Sunday 27^th September had the effect of leaving the central area (Area G) scheduled for cutting incredibly boggy. This area is technically called a mire, and with good reason. As it was still very windy over the weekend, the work was postponed until Monday. Six hardy regulars turned out to slosh about in the wet, and were joined by our NWT warden George with three welcome colleagues, two of whom are volunteers at Cley, and for one of those this was his first experience of volunteering for NWT! The race is on to get this section of the Common cut and cleared by the end of September, in order to avoid the risk of incurring Natural England’s displeasure and a potential fine for non-compliance with the funding agreement.  

The first task was to set up dumping sites in the alder carr, allowing the loaded sheets to be winched in. Winches can be slippery customers; here John is about to pounce on the unsuspecting machine.

At the same time, channels were cut so that the sheets could be laid out, ready for the few pitchforkers to load them up.

As always in these Covid-secure times, good social distancing was observed; not too difficult when only a maximum of 10 people are involved.

With the ground so wet, slogging through it was hard work, and the vegetation was of course soaking and heavy, so the do-it-yourself refreshment break was a welcome, but subdued affair.

It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Grizzly is a heavy beast, and despite its big wide wheels, when it hits a particularly boggy patch it can get stuck, and dig itself ever deeper in the mire. Here George is giving Grizzly a right good talking to.

We were about to hook it up to the winch to try to haul it out backwards, but in the event the extra muscle provided by the doughty NWT folk allowed it to be dragged out manually, to breathless cheers.

By the time your correspondent took his leave (with only a tinge of regret) after a couple of hours of hard labour, the scene looked like this. A couple of our volunteers decided to stay on for a while longer, and then the NWT guys had the prospect of another few hours’ effort to console themselves with.

The typically modern bucolic hum of chainsaws combined with the clatter of the Grizzly mower combined to almost drown out the seemingly ever-present roar of warplanes somewhere up in or above the lowering clouds. Small frogs looked more than usually bewildered to be harried from puddle to puddle. They can look forward to more of the same in a couple of days’ time.

When Julie visited later, the place looked like this.

She saw a deer on Area B too - but the combination of two interested dogs and her fumbling for her phone meant it’s only a dot on the photo as it retreated to cover in the scrub!

A Tale of Two Teams

 

Last week I mentioned the unusually late but excellent number of Glow-worms still active on The Common. To my shame, although I have long been aware of their presence, I have never made it down there at night to see them for myself. So I have now put that right; on two consecutive nights running I went across the boardwalk after dark, at about 8.30 p.m. The conditions were presumably ideal; the moon had already set, the sky was cloudless, and the temperature reasonably warm, with only a slight breeze. When I first saw a little glow that lasted for a few seconds before fading to black again, I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks, as I had only just switched off my torch – not really wanting to fall off the boardwalk. But as my eyes/brain became attuned to the darkness I realised that there were little earth-bound stars everywhere, mirroring the spectacle above. I wasn’t inclined to count them, but at a guess I must have seen around 40-50 of these lovelorn lady beetles – wonderful!

 

Not being available for the working party today, once again Team Leader Julie has done the blogging honours. At this rate, she will get the title of “Your usual correspondent.”

 

During the week we had been given the go ahead by NWT to continue with working parties of up to ten people in one area - exempt from the ‘rule of six’ due to the fact that we are working in a voluntary capacity for a charitable organisation. So on Saturday, the proposed winching site on Area G/E was cleared and prepared and the reed was cut. The Michaelmas daisies on Area A were also cut. The only fly in the ointment was the punctures to wheelbarrow wheels.  One trusty volunteer was wielding a spanner on one of the barrows when he became aware of a presence behind him...he turned to see three alpacas scrutinising his efforts! A missed photo opportunity I fear!! They have obviously swapped their Sunday stroll for a Saturday one.... perhaps they are camera shy.

On Sunday morning we all arrived on site in glorious sunshine. As is the norm the team leaders took the required equipment to the ‘sites’....plural as the team leaders had received enough requests to volunteer to have twelve people in total, so had decided to split into two teams. Eight were to clear reed and scrub on the central area near the ‘Chadwick bench’ utilising the winch, and four were to clear the cut Michaelmas daisies near Warren Road hand pulling the old yellow sheets.

The old yellow sheets have not seen any action for some time and are pictured here ready for action.

Soon we were underway on both sites.

...raking the reed on to sheets on the central area

....clearing scrub on the central area.

 ...and clearing cut daisies and reed on the Warren Road site.

By the time we broke for a drinks break halfway through the session it was very warm - it felt more like July than September. We were all ready for a drink. I am beginning to suspect there is a refreshment competition now underway....some of us had our trusty water bottles...others had flasks of coffee and some stood munching cake! 

Replenished, we set to work again. There still seemed to be an awful lot of reed yet to be cleared....I think we learnt a lesson today that the magic number of ten people is the ideal for clearing the areas we tackle in a day. With four people on the daisy area and eight on the central area we all had a tough session.

But we put our backs into it and got the job done...

We had to chuckle as calls of “it’s out” were heard...apparently it was just that the reed was out of the sheet!

A little over our normal time slot, we got the sheets folded and packed up for the day.

An excellent job done on both areas ... 

...and a reminder that when we keep the reed controlled, beauties like these can flourish...

Here is Julie's message of thanks, on behalf of the Team Leaders:

Dear Volunteers

We had confirmation from NWT on Thursday that we could carry on working with our groups of 10 volunteers. We are exempt from the "rule of six" as it is 'for work, and voluntary or charitable services'. This was great news for us.

So, we were able to run our work party today in the glorious sunshine. It felt like a mid summer's day.  We had 12 keen volunteers today, so we made the decision to go ahead with this number and split into two totally separate groups with the main group of eight shifting reed and clearing scrub on the area by the Chadwick Bench and four people clearing Michaelmas Daisies on the area near Warren Road. With hindsight this was probably a mistake as it was very hard work for both groups!  

So this is a massive thank you for the amazing effort put in by both teams - as  we managed to clear both areas...a stunning success. We have decided though that we need to learn from today and keep to the magic number of ten volunteers on one site going forward to keep it manageable and enjoyable for all. (We can still manage 12, if people are keen to join in, by taking two people off to brush cutter and tidy the edges of the boardwalk).  

We will be running our final September work party next Sunday. The pressure to cut the fen and clear the Michaelmas daisies before the end of the month will then be lifted as NWT will have to clear any remaining areas before the last day of September. We can then get back to a more relaxed approach clearing scrub and tidying boardwalk edges throughout October and November.

One further thing to say is that someone left some very good gloves on the bench - they are large gloves with a camouflage finish to the top.  If you recognise these as yours - they are safe in the container. You can either collect them when you next volunteer, or if you need them sooner than this then please make contact with Margaret Dowland or reply to this email and we can arrange for someone to get them for you. 

Many thanks again to today's volunteers.  We hope you all stay safe and well.

Regards, Julie (for the Team leaders)

A Garland of Bindweed

 Sunday 13th being the last day before the new legal restriction on social gatherings to no more than six people came into force, this working party was able to consist of at several more than the ‘rule of six’ with a clear conscience. We are waiting for a definitive ruling from NWT on permissible numbers for future sessions: this is not as obvious as it seems, but it looks likely that as what we do is socially distanced voluntary work for a charity we will be allowed to continue in the way we have been organising ourselves. A couple of other exemptions, for sports and religion, are also attractive, or if things get really sticky we could perhaps instead arrange a wedding for each session. We should perhaps avoid calling our sessions ‘working parties’ as that will throw the whole thing into even deeper confusion. How about ‘working matches’, or ‘working services’?

On 13^th September in 1768, Gilbert White noted “Ravens are continually playing by pairs in the air.” None here sadly, but we can manage the odd crow. In 1771 it was “Grapes begin to turn colour”, and in 1773 he saw that there were “Young swallows in the nest.” In 1789 he reported on “Several nests of Goldfinches, with fledged young”. Meanwhile here and now, there are excellent numbers of Glow-worms lighting up The Common, perhaps unseasonably late in the year. The sightings whiteboard at the Information Point reveals that at least 100 were recorded late in the evening of 9^th; it must have been an exciting sight.

As has been the necessary pattern lately, preliminary work for Sunday’s session was done on Saturday morning. More Alders were asked to leave Area B (half of the grassy open part beside Warren Road), whilst the Grizzly chopped through the remaining uncut vegetation. Here is the resultant pile of now horizontal saplings, with the ‘tree popper’ used to hoick them out taking a well-earned rest beside them.

Almost immediately after that picture was taken the Grizzly chopped through a wasps’ nest. Quite unreasonably the stripey-jumpered inhabitants objected in the best way they knew how, and John beat a hasty retreat, firmly telling them to ‘buzz off’ or something similar. He was fortunately stung only once, on his heel, but that was more than enough; he shall henceforth be known as Achilles. The upshot was that the area guarded by the wasps had to be excluded from the otherwise comprehensive clearance of that section in Sunday’s main event.

 

Your usual correspondent being on the bench for this fixture, Team Leader Julie again takes up the story:

We had a lovely day for our work party today with blue skies and sunshine.

We were working up near Warren Road and yesterday’s preparation and pre-cut team had set up a winching site part way down, as we need a longer rope to winch all the way down to the dump sites we used last week. With the shorter pulls we were loading the sheets less, winching them to the dump site and the two people guiding the sheets were able to roll them onto the heaps without needing to use the winch for that part of the operation. It was all very efficient!

There was a lot of bindweed tangled in with the reed today making it quite hard to pick up at times. It was noted that all the parcels of reed were wrapped in a garland of bindweed!

 We had our customary break at half time and all caught up on the latest news ... 

Following the break we sent an elite team round the corner to tackle the cut reed in the scrub area we cleared last year. We opted to hand pull these sheets rather than move the winch.

 

Everyone had to be careful in this area as our poor Grizzly operator yesterday disturbed a wasp nest and spent the evening nursing a swollen leg.  We cordoned the area off with red tape and kept a safe distance away!

Eventually the last load was on its way on the main site... 

...and with reinforcements then sent to finish the old scrub area we were soon done for the day. As Margaret said in her thank you note - looking from the boardwalk over towards what was scrub last year people can see further than they have for 20 years... I think all the Southrepps Commons Volunteers past and present can give themselves a huge pat on the back for the work done here.

The boardwalk was busy this morning with people enjoying our Common! (Sadly no Alpacas this week though.)

The end product today:

Here is the Team Leaders’ message of thanks:

Thank you to everyone who came this morning. We were blessed with a beautiful dry bright morning at just about the right temperature. We have completed all the cutting in area B and thanks to the work done last winter you can now see further through the fen than has been seen for 20 years. That's a clumsy sentence but I think you get the drift. Social distancing does make a difference and it was a while before the chatter picked up, but we managed.

Thank you all so much for helping to make all this work, your support for the commons is just brilliant. Julie is getting guidance from NWT to see how the new 'rule of six' affects us so we will keep you posted but we hope to run two more working parties in September on the 20th and 27th so watch out for her emails.

 Enjoy the rest of the day and stay safe.

Best wishes from the Team Leaders.

 

Alpacas and a headless broom

 

Inspired by hearing novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison on Radio 4’s Start the Week I have become a convert to her wonderful podcasts. She started these during Lockdown, as a way of sharing her walks in rural Suffolk with anyone who wants to listen in. Each week’s podcast includes a guest contributor, a poem and extracts from the diaries of the great 18^th century naturalist Gilbert White, relevant to the date of Melissa’s walk. They are a very relaxing way of spending half an hour; charming and almost an exercise in mindfulness. They can be found on her website at https://melissaharrison.co.uk/podcast/ .

Pinching Melissa’s idea of quoting Gilbert White’s diary entries for the day under review, I see that on 6^th September 1775 he noted “Wasps abound not only in neighbourhoods, but in lone fields, and woods…” but in 1790 it was a case of “Hardly here & there a wasp to be seen.” In 1785 he was reporting the storm damage done to his Orleans plum tree and a neighbour’s horse chestnut, as well as the “vast damage to the hop-gardens, which are torn and shattered in a sad manner!” The following year, the day’s entry was that “Hirundines (swallows and house martins) cluster on Hartley-house, & on the thatch of the Grange barn.” Presumably in preparation for migration.

Our Covid-secure arrangements mean that many of us are attending alternate working parties, but since at the moment they are happening each Sunday the usual pattern of every other Sunday morning for individuals is more or less unchanged. Not so for Margaret, who has been having a push on removing the errant Alder saplings that insist on trying to spread into the species-rich grassy areas adjacent to Warren Road that are the subject of the current work. Working with one other person each morning last week, the remaining saplings have been removed ahead of the mower, thus preventing them from being lopped off at ground level, and so going on to become little coppiced trees, stubbornly resistant to their easy removal.

Speaking of the Grizzly mower, we had a bit of a scare as it developed another fuel leak last week. It was whisked away for repair at the NWT workshop, and thankfully has been returned to us without any risk of causing us to fall behind our tight timescale. It was used to cut another substantial part of Area B, ready for today’s working party to clear up after it.

One of the effects of the Covid-secure precautions we are working with is the need for social distancing at the storage container, meaning that now only two people load the tools needed for the session onto our little green trolley well before the rest of the volunteers arrive – and the reverse at the end of the session. This means that team leaders are putting in even more hours than the rest of us; today we each clocked up 2 hours work, but the two leaders doubled that amount. In total, the working party alone accounted for 26 hours work, and the preparatory work done in the days leading up to it accounted for another 5 ½ hours.

Anyway, including team leaders 11 of us had turned up by 9.00 a.m. We had four drag sheets in operation, with people working (and keeping) in pairs loading cut vegetation onto them.

Two of us ‘escorted’ the loaded sheets as they were winched to the dumping site.

We are dedicated in our adherence to social distancing; including these neatly spaced out pitchforks…

We don’t of course benefit from having refreshments provided for the mid-session break, so must provide our own, taken at a safe distance from each other. This has always been the convivial highlight of our working parties, so is sadly reduced now. Nonetheless, when the call comes, there’s still almost a rush.

As well as clearing the cut vegetation, the chance was taken to break out a brush cutter to trim the boardwalk edges. It’s a noisy job, but another necessary one. Here’s Brian about to set the machine going.

All that strimming leads to a lot of cut grass on the boardwalk, and that needs brushing off, and that’s hard work, made harder by the non-slip netting.

Sheila and Julie took the job in turns. They must have put a lot of effort in, as this headless broom attests.

This area involves the longest distance we have to winch sheets; so far in fact that we need to hook a second length of rope on. This could be one of the most exciting pictures this blog has ever featured!

These two are peering into the distance, wondering when the next sheet will come into view.

Shortly before the end of the session, some Alpacas strolled along the boardwalk, as they do. They looked a bit surprised to see us, but were stoical about the noise of the winch. (Thinks: could they be pressed into service pulling sheets? They’re not cart horses it’s true, but…)

Here’s how the area looked with just one more lonely sheet to shift.

Here is the team leaders’ message of thanks:

To all our volunteers

We hope that you all continue to remain safe and well.

We ran another work party today with eleven volunteers and have now almost cleared Area B on the Warren Road end of the site. We were also able today to have a Brushcutter in action to clear the edges so the boardwalk from Warren Road to the bridge over the beck is looking clear and neat.

A huge thank you goes to all of the Volunteers who attended today. It was a lovely atmosphere on the site and great to all 'catch up' with each other.

We will be back in action with a different set of Volunteers next Sunday.

Keep well

Regards, John, Kevin, Julie, Margaret, Denise and Sue