Balsam Battalion forward!

 

Enthusiasts of stinging nettles would find the Warren Road end of the boardwalk across the main Common very much to their taste at this time of year, for it is at that extreme termination of the wonderful winding path through the reeds and grassy fen that Urtica dioica flourishes. It’s not clear to me at least why it grows so strongly just there, right along the edges of the boardwalk, ready to be a literal pain to people with legs more attractive than mine, and thus likely to be uncovered in this exceptionally warm weather. (That’s not to say the legs belonging to your usual correspondent are unattractive; it’s just that the attraction extends no further than the various biting and stinging creatures lurking about what is, let’s face it, a nature reserve – and so those legs must, from necessity, remain clothed.)

“What on earth is he wittering on about?” I hear our faithful reader cry. It’s just this: on another blisteringly hot day (which presumably explains the astonishingly painful blister on my thumb caused by over-enthusiastic boardwalk brushing) 14 volunteers turned out for another couple of hours of penance – for which sins we must forever remain in ignorance. As was the case last time, one of the tasks of the day was to trim back the vegetation encroaching on the boardwalk edges, making progress along that highway difficult, and in the case of the nettly end, potentially painful. And we did it! With great aplomb Brush Cutter operators Noel and Kevin, backed up by broom, rake, pitchfork and lopper operators John, John, Louise, Julie, Carolyn and your own correspondent, completed the trimming along one edge of the entire length of the boardwalk – including those pesky nettles.

While we were enjoying that, the Balsam Battalion forced their way into the undergrowth to haul out by the roots as many Himalayan Balsam plants as they could lay their hands on. This was not without incident, at least for Team Leader Margaret, who reportedly had some sort of disrobing turn, followed by falling face first in the vicinity of a wasps’ nest (getting a sting or two in the process), and then wading into Fox’s Beck only to discover it came up above the top of her Wellies. A certain amount of hilarity amongst her otherwise sympathetic and supportive colleagues was occasioned.

Balsam Bashers like to boast of the enormous heights to which these invasive plants grow, and since there is such a lot of fake news about, we must insist on photographic evidence, so here’s some:

Despite the stifling jungle-like heat and humidity, there’s still some satisfaction to be had from the way the stems go “thwock” when you break them: serves them right!

An hour in, there was of course the usual very welcome break for refreshments, in the cool shade beside our tool store.

These breaks are well named, for they seem to break your usual correspondent's concentration - much like a test match batsman losing his wicket straight after tea. It happened last time, when I reported that I "could not find my bits". This time I had forgotten where Noel and I had hidden our tools in case they were purloined in our absence. A lot of walking up and down the boardwalk (particularly the shady bits) was necessary before I had to give in and ask Noel where we had left them. He was good enough to tell me, meaning I had to leave the shady bits and go back to brushing in the broiling sunshine. I was suitably grateful, of course.

Strolling back along the boardwalk at the end of another gruelling session, it was pleasant to pause in the cool of the bridge over Fox’s Beck. This stream is wonderful – it never dries out and is always crystal clear. It was tempting to lie down in it today!!

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks for today’s work:

Hello all.

Whenever it is my turn to write these thank you messages I always feel they are so inadequate as a means of thanking you all for your hard work. !4 crazy folk braved heat, wasps, streams and trip hazards. Thanks to their hard work we can all now pass more freely down the boardwalk, much appreciated by walkers, dogs and pushchair occupants. We also took battle to the Himalayan balsam. Having been pulling the stuff for 18 years I can say that the area we were working today is less heavily infested than it used to be, so the task is worthwhile.

So thank you all very much for your help and support.

 In two weeks’ time we start the cutting programme and work will commence on the Warren Rd side of the beck. Before that I invite those who are able, willing or just plain daft, to another balsam bash on Thursday 4th August 9.00 start. Meet at the Warren Road side bench. Long sleeves and long trousers are essential.

Thanks again, enjoy your well-earned rest and see you all soon.

Margaret for the team leaders.

 And finally,

A couple of the Team Leaders recently met Aaron, a botanical expert from NWT, to look at the wildflower plot started last year at Pit Common. Between them they found sulphur clover, oxeye daisy, Knapweed, wild carrot and yellow rattle. It’s gratifying to see such good progress already. On a gloomier note, the extent to which invasive Crassula is carpeting the exposed bed of the pond is alarming; the more so because successfully and permanently removing it is so difficult.

 

The Magnificent Seven, plus your correspondent

 

Phew, what a scorcher! Yesterday (Sunday 10^th) was forecast to be hot, so an early-ish start was necessary for our first working party since March. We basically need to avoid disturbing the Commons during Spring and Summer, but there are some jobs that simply have to be done. One of these is to trim back the vegetation along the edges of the boardwalk across the main site. The stuff sits there deceitfully growing only modestly for weeks on end, and then suddenly, when it is least convenient, shoots up massively, overhanging the boardwalk and making enjoying the place more difficult than it should be. So once or twice in the Summer it needs cutting back, and the fun element is hard to find.

The other essential job at this time of year is to return to our never-ending struggle to keep the pesky invasive Himalayan Balsam under control. We thought that we had almost eliminated it a year or two ago, but it’s certainly fighting back this year. Now here’s a thing: this plant has evolved to thrive in the Himalayas, which let’s face it are rather more elevated than Southrepps, so why is it also so happy at such a low altitude? It just isn’t fair.

The call to arms having been issued, eight hardy volunteers convened, braced for a couple of hours of very warm work. Your correspondent had had the foresight to prepare a flask of cold drink, and was quite put out on arrival to discover that it had not come with him. 15 minutes of raking cut reeds provided all the proof necessary of the foolishness of this mistake, so a hasty trip back home was required to rectify the situation. This should not in any way be construed as skiving, dear reader, but it was nice to get some air moving across the fevered brow.

Eight volunteers is quite a small group, and well short of our average turnout, so it was not going to be possible to complete either task. Linda, Den and Team Leader Margaret plunged into the undergrowth to tackle the Balsam. They did in time return, bearing tales of gigantic plants of exceptional vigour, so much more Balsam Bashing is needed. Regrettably, no photos were taken on this occasion.

The other five volunteers concentrated on the boardwalk edge. I say ‘edge’ advisedly, as the sensible course was to cut back only one side of the boardwalk, in order to improve the situation for the greatest distance in the time available. Brush cutter operators Kevin and Noel operated their brush cutters to good effect, while the two equally doughty rake and broom operators Ken and I raked and brushed for all we were worth.

The fifth member, Team Leader Julie, wielded loppers on overhanging branches to great effect: the results are there for all regular visitors to the place to appreciate.

As modelled here by Noel, we needed to be protectively dressed in long-sleeved shirts, trousers and boots, so it really was hot work – thanks goodness I went back for my drink!

Here's how it looked before we started…

… and after

 After an hour of such heat torture, a welcome break was called: being British, of course we had a nice hot cup of tea or coffee – what splendid pluck!

Having already lost all touch with reality, at the break your correspondent caused a certain amount of hilarity by wondering aloud where he had left his bits. The missing cold drink incident had shattered his confidence. We were also full of admiration for Noel’s needleworking skills, as evidenced by the natty patching of his jeans; he held his audience enthralled.

At last a halt was called and as we walked back to the boardwalk entrance, we could admire our handiwork.

Everyone can admire the point of all this effort when they visit. This year the Cotton Grass has been much more impressive than recently. This is on the central area where we hand weeded the reed out - it was worth it!! 

The orchids are magnificent too.

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks, along with the schedule of forthcoming working parties.

Hello all

We hope that you are enjoying the sunshine.

Firstly, a huge thank you goes to the 8 hardy (or mad?) volunteers who turned out in the heat this morning to pull some Himalayan Balsam and to cut back the reed and grass at the edge of the boardwalk. At the start of the day the boardwalk was very overgrown and difficult to walk along...the volunteers managed to clear a large section of boardwalk edging to enable people to be able to walk along it easily.

There is still a lot to do with the boardwalk edging and we will be returning in two weeks time (24th July) to tackle more clearance work. 

Following this we will be starting on the reed cutting to fit in with the required schedule for cutting the fen areas. Below is the schedule of work party dates for the rest of 2022 and into 2023:

Sunday 24th July (9am)

Sunday 7th August (9am)

Sunday 21st August (9am)

Sunday 4th September (9am)

Sunday 18th September (9am)

Sunday 2nd October (9am)

Sunday 16th October (9am)

Sunday 30th October (10am)

Sunday 13th November (10am)

Sunday 27th November (10am)

Sunday 11th December (10am)

Sunday 8th January 2023 (10am)

Sunday 22nd January (10am)

Sunday 5th February (10am)

Sunday 19th February (10am)

Sunday 5th March (10am)

Sunday 19th March (10am) 

Spring starts in a rush

 

The cutting season proper having finished at the end of last month, this was the last scheduled work party of the winter. We had been thwarted by the weather in completing all of our tasks on the main common, but no such impediments affected this session, on Pit Common. With a week of almost wall-to-wall sunshine, Spring appears to have happened in a rush. Flowers are blooming, bees and butterflies are making early tentative flights, and the frogs on both our ponds have been busy spawning. Here’s some spawn in the secluded Scouts’ Pond.

And the birds are starting to sing. On that subject, I recently read about some clever research looking at the creeping degradation of that glory of the season; the dawn chorus. Rachel Carson warned the world of the catastrophe coming if the use of pesticides was allowed to continue unchecked, calling her hugely influential book Silent Spring. Well, fortunately it’s not silent, yet, and we can still marvel at the racket made by some birds at least. A walk the other day revealed my first chiffchaffs of the year, along with robins, blackbirds, song thrush, dunnocks, noisy great tits and many spirit-soaring larks ascending. The research, using data from the British Trust for Ornithology’s long-running Breeding Bird Survey and other citizen science datasets from across Europe and North America, explored how the soundtrack of spring has changed. Going back over 25 years, records of breeding birds in various locations were combined with recordings of those species, from the excellent Xeno Canto online database. (This is well worth exploring, at www.xeno-canto.org. A huge number of recordings of hundreds of species are there for free, so if you want to know what a particular bird sounds like, this is the site to visit.)

The sad fact is that the soundscape is greatly reduced from only 25 years ago; there are drastically fewer individual birds, and the number of species occurring at many places has also fallen dramatically. So whilst the dawn chorus here might still be loud, it is no longer as richly varied as it was only very recently. The value of this research is that it takes a step back in time, allowing for an accurate comparison with today. A phenomenon known as ‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome’ means that younger people who have never experienced past abundance can only compare today’s position to their own earliest memories, and thus the true extent of decline is hidden. Techniques such as this can help decision makers understand the extent of the loss, and with luck do something to reverse it – which is where we volunteers come in.

The Magnificent Dozen convened at Pit Common on another beautiful sunny morning; ironic perhaps, since we had arguably more pressing work to do a month ago when the weather was so awful we couldn’t get it done. The work for this session was to cut the vegetation between the pond and the road; give the grass a light mow, prior to most of it being left to grow for the season, with some paths mown through it; and to create a dumping area away from general view for future use.

Here's how the chosen area looked before our attention

The assembled company consisted of hewers of wood…

… wielders of loppers…

… the man who came to mow…

… the man who came to cut brush…

… and the highly skilled builder of dead hedges…

As is traditional, half way through the session came the half-time break, including particularly welcome chocolate biscuits. A highly attentive crew gathered round Team Leader Julie while she filled us in on NWT’s management plan for the site. We’re anxiously awaiting the results of the ensuing test!

Fed, watered and briefed, we all went back to work with a will, and were pretty pleased with ourselves at the end of the session.

Here’s the finished dead hedge – impressive eh?

The area cleared of a prickly mass of mainly dead brambles is now ready for what we can dump there in the future, to rot down quietly out of sight.

The mown area

The roadside verge

The Pit itself is looking good

As mentioned above, both our ponds have had some very busy frogs, and hopefully toads. There are large clumps of spawn in the Pit, albeit not easily photographed in the bright sunlight.

As well as the frogspawn, the bottom of this picture also shows the wretched invasive Crassula which is infesting both ponds. 

And on the subject of invasive pernicious weeds, our next session is likely to be to remove Himalayan Balsam once it shows itself. And so the world turns, as it must…

 

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks:

Hello all

We hope that you are all enjoying the lovely blue skies and sunshine we are being treated to.  We held our final work party of the season today at the Pit. Twelve volunteers made short work of the first grass cutting of the season along with clearing a large area towards the back of the site - which will be used as our future dump site (out of sight from the road).

On behalf of all the team leaders (and NWT) we would like to thank all those who have given their time over the season on the SSSI Common, School Common and at the Pit. It is amazing how much our group of dedicated volunteers achieve across the three areas. NWT are very grateful and always impressed with what we achieve.

For those of you who are happy to do it there will be some smaller work parties from around May tackling the very invasive Himalayan Balsam. I will put out an email when these are scheduled.  Otherwise we look forward to seeing you all in the late summer when we are allowed to cut the reed on the main SSSI Common again.

Enjoy your spring and summer.

Regards, Julie (for the TLs)

Reedbed Revisited

 Three weeks ago we should have been back in the treacherous swamp so evocatively named Area X, but the wind was too strong for safe working, and the as it turned out unfulfilled promise of heavy rain made the prospect of working anywhere further away from trees unattractive, so the session was called off; a very rare event. Area X has since remained untouched, as the go-ahead had been given for one final session for the season in the main reedbed; an Area with the much friendlier name of Area D. This had been partially cut way back in December 2020, but the job couldn’t be completed due to the Covid lockdown immediately after Christmas. Nor, as it turned out, could it be done last Sunday, when we hoped to do it. Quite rightly, NWT took the view that the string of storms bearing the deceptively friendly names of Dudley, Eunice and Franklin that had so assailed the country made working outside too risky. I used to work with a Eunice, and she was a particularly pleasant and jolly colleague for a trainee librarian to have. Far nicer than the Eunice who visited us recently.

This is an area that is only cut every four years, so its next scheduled cut is not until 2024, meaning that some of it will not have been touched for seven or eight years – plenty long enough for scrub to begin establishing itself. Last Saturday, sandwiched between Eunice and Franklin, a section was cut with the usual intention of giving the working party on the following day a start whilst more was to be cut.

Here are the pre-cutters en route:

And here is how they left the site:

As things turned out, that following day’s working party was called off, and since it was essential that what had been cut was cleared the decision was taken to simply remove what was lying there so soggily, knowing that the whole area could not be cut and cleared in a single session. It’s disappointing to have failed to complete our cutting programme, but Covid and the weather have had the upper hand.

Today happily saw far better Spring weather and it was with some relief that we were able to have another crack at it, even if it was our one and only chance before it must be left alone again. 16 splendid volunteers arrived at the appointed hour, squelching their way to the waterlogged and secluded part of the reedbed requiring their attention.

The narrow swathe previously cut through the reedbed lent itself well to a slightly different method of working, with the four drag sheets laid out in a single line. This turned out to be a particularly efficient way of working, with the nearest sheet dragged to the dumping point and when empty retunred to the back of the queue.

The winch team winched away in their usual highly efficient way, even managing not to sink.

As we had less to do than usual, we finished by the usual time we take a break. That didn’t stop us tucking in of course.

Right on cue, our regular Alpaca visitors hove into view. They were a bit cautious passing so close to a bunch of grubby people laughing, eating and drinking (the volunteers, not the abstemious camelids), but they carried it off with their usual dignity.

Here’s how we left that part of Area D.

No doubt the next time we’re there it will have all grown up again; hopefully having been home to some families of reed-nesting birds.

And in case we need reminding why we turn out to work on the Common, sometimes when it’s wet, sometimes when it’s cold and sometimes when it’s uncomfortably hot, this picture of the snowdrops beside the spur of the boardwalk leading to Bradfield Road might just do the trick. As described on this blog last November (https://southreppscommonsvolunteers.blogspot.com/2021/11/freezing-fun-and-fungi.html) a group set to work to give these lovely flowers a clear run at showing themselves off to their best advantage, and I’d say it paid off handsomely.

Team Leader Kevin gave a nicely judged word of thanks to the assembled group at the end of this working party, to thank us for our efforts and to declare that this was the last session of the current cutting season – it’s over to Nature now. The next calls to arms are likely to be a return to the notorious Area X or the annual resistance to the spread of Himalayan Balsam; what larks!

Here is Kevin's message of thanks:

A big thank you goes out to the volunteers who decided that they would like a squelch in the mud to help clear the last cut reed of the season.  They were so keen that we had accomplished this by coffee time, enabling us to have a longer coffee break than usual before clearing the site and going home. 

 We have not completed cutting the area worked on but Natural England (and therefore, NWT) will only allow us to cut reed until the end of February. So that is the end of our work cutting reeds for this season. However, we still hope to hold some work parties in March to complete scrub clearance and possibly to clear arisings from NWTs work to clear a few rogue alders around the site. 

 Julie will be in touch about the next work party once we have agreed with NWT what needs to be done in March. 

In the meantime, thank you for all your efforts so far this season.

 Kevin

Back in the mire again

 

No, this is not another political commentary; it’s the tale of how 16 doughty volunteers set to work on the un-glamorous part of the common, with its equally un-glamorous name of ‘Area X’. Do you know Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, or perhaps the film ‘Apocalypse Now’ which was based on that novel? If you do, think of it and double it: “The horror, the horror”.

Perhaps I am over-stating it, but Area X is a squelchy morass, as Noel discovered near the end of the session, when the bog refused to let his boot go.

Team work, and some unwillingness to leave one of our number behind saved the day: with one volunteer holding him up, another extracted the missing footwear from the swamp, and the two were reunited.

As is customary on these occasions, preparatory work was done the day before, to prepare the way for the main session. Here are three of our crack volunteers relaxing after it with an impromptu rendition of that old favourite, “There’s a hole in my bucket”.

If the site itself was somewhat damp underfoot, reaching it represented a trek the like of which Dr. Livingstone himself might have thought twice about. Fortune favours the brave however, and all who made it in were also safely returned to the boardwalk a couple of hours later. One late-comer had trouble finding us, naturally assuming that no-one would be foolish enough to set out across such a seemingly impenetrable spot. It was only the cries of people happy in their work (and the occasional splash) that led her in.

The task facing us was to continue from last winter in clearing back some of the alarmingly thorny scrub and the spreading Alder trees, with the intention over time of bringing the area up to the splendid standard of the rest of Area B, which is such a rich source of flora and fauna. On arrival, the prospect could have seemed daunting, but these people laugh in the face of such challenges.

What’s going on here? Answers on a postcard please, but it looks like a tug of war over a particularly choice stick, with a more acceptable one about to be offered: “Leave it!”

Tripping hazards abounded, and part of what we were doing was to cut out as many as possible, in order to make it a safer working space for moving the more substantial material around. Loppers in hand, your correspondent is here shown surrounded by an admiring crowd – or perhaps they are merely astonished to see him actually on site. I hope they learned a thing or two!

All that stuff being cleared needed putting somewhere, and that called for a ‘dead hedge’ to be created, taking care not to block a natural drain (which might have been doing a good job as a drain, but frankly, it barely seemed worth its while). Here is the hedge about 30 minutes in…

A bit later it had grown to this…

And by the end it looked like this.

To the untrained eye, that might look just like a pile of sticks. But to the discerning afficionado of dead hedges, it’s a monument to this almost extinct craft. Team Leader Julie provides the skill, and we confidently expect to see her interviewed on ‘Countryfile’ any day soon.

Alcohol-free coffee time arrived at the half-way point.

In keeping with the TV theme, two chaps took the opportunity to audition for ‘Last of the Summer Wine.’

After the break, ever-bigger lumps of wood were moved; it seemed that some were suitably shaped for the construction of old-style wooden warships, or was that overwork having a hallucinatory effect on your correspondent?

By the end of the session it was clear that a lot had been achieved…

… but more remains to do. Indeed, it seemed the merry band would have cheerfully carried on, but all good things must come to an end, and the Team Leaders quite rightly called a halt, promising the chance of further sloshing about in cloying mud in a fortnight’s time. Your correspondent has already sent in his apologies…

 Here’s Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Thank you all so much for turning up despite our best efforts to persuade you all it was a rotten task! It is a privilege to belong to a group of such lovely people. You far exceeded my expectations of what we could achieve today, and as always did it willingly and we all had fun. Thank you seems so inadequate.

Margaret on behalf of the team leaders.