Category Archives: Conservation

Conservation, Nature Reserves

LWT Hedge-Laying Course with Clive Leeke at GT

Netty delighted to find a Tawny Owl feather in the reserve, for the first time
Margaret and the team delivering the binders to the meadow in front of the hedge site
The hedge before we started: tall, leggy, and apparently never cut or laid before
Clive demonstrating how to cut a pleacher, a Hawthorn stem that you can then lay to form a barrier. Somehow it looked quite easy when he did it.
… and down goes the pleacher, that’s all you have to do.
Well we managed it somehow, our first pleached Hawthorn (a complex job with a lot of stems to lay)
Clive Leeke showing us how to sharpen a stake with a few swift axe-blows
Hedge-Staker extraordinaire. The idea is to space them a cubit apart, in a straight line, trapping every pleached stem. The binders then retain the stakes. Well, that’s the theory…
Weaving binders around hedge stakes
Jules boshing down the nicely woven-in binders
First section of hedge completed
Conservation, Natural History

Pond-Skimming Reveals Hornwort, Newts, Pondweed, Water Scorpion, Leeches

Pond-skimming. Netty is rescuing pondweed and animals especially damselfly nymphs to return them to the water.

We spent the time skimming off as much of the duckweed that was blanketing the surface of the pond as possible using pole nets. The idea is to let light filter down to the bottom of the pond to encourage the more delicate pondweeds. In the process, we had a good opportunity to check the status of some of the pond life that we don’t usually get to see, as the underwater plants are rather few beside the boardwalk – most likely because the continual sampling keeps them from growing much. But the rest of the pond is another story.

Rigid Hornwort, its shoots stiff as if covered in limescale
Canadian pondweed
Damselfly nymph with leaflike tail appendages
A stubby damselfly nymph with spiky tail appendages

There were at least two kinds of damselfly nymph, possibly bluetail and azure damselflies, judging by a pondside look at the book without a handlens. The little camera in close-up mode is just about capable of resolving detail at this scale, given good light. The various damselfly nymphs have differently-shaped tail appendages, which the book says are diagnostic.

Leaflike tail appendages of a long slender damselfly nymph, with feathery venation just about visible: I must have a look with the microscope and book!

We also caught a newt or two. We carefully put all the minibeasts and interesting bits of pondweed back in the water.

Hoglouse
Leech on finger 1
Leech on finger 2
A fine big Water Scorpion
Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Herald moth brightens a day of clipping path edges

Herald Moth on Netty’s glove, whirring its wings to warm up. Its food plants are Willow and Aspen; we found it under a Grey Poplar so that’s probably what it grew up on. We found another specimen a minute later. They were cold and groggy on this cool, rainy day.
Clipping path edges: the ivy had grown over the edging poles, sometimes by a foot or so.
Conservation, Gardening, Nature Reserves

A busy day at the reserve

School visit to GT nature reserve

We set to work clearing the patch of meadow in front of the hut: it usually has a mix of wild flowers to welcome visitors, and that’s what we plan for it this year. We hoed out the weeds, raked out the stones, and sieved the earth to create a smooth seedbed.

Sieving earth for the demonstration wild flower meadow

Being at the front of the reserve, we got to see everyone who came in, and there were plenty of visitors!

Oliver the education officer asks a question. Hands seemed to pop up very quickly.

The reserve has 3 main purposes – to conserve nature, to educate children about nature, and to give the public a place to experience and enjoy nature. It’s a pleasure when all of these can be seen happening at once!

Sawing a board to length for boardwalk
Alexanders, Smyrnium olusatrum, coming speedily into leaf and flower beside the seasonal pond

Spring is rushing along with no time to lose. Areas that were bare a moment ago are covered in fresh green leaves. The water plants seem to be especially quick: the Iris blades are feet high already.

Fresh new Iris shoots in seasonal pond
Conservation, Nature Reserves

Debrambling and Distributor Heads all in a Day’s Work

Volunteers debrambling the Acid Grassland
Four Volunteers
Quite a haul of rubbish by the fence (and yes, that’s a distributor cap)

Distributor bits, wing mirror, electrical leads, yes, there used to be a garage over the fence. What with old rusty pipes, cigarette lighters, glass milk bottles (remember them?)  and remains of workers’ lunches, it was quite a haul. We dug out some champion brambles and quite a few enormous nettles, too.

I also found some bits of Asbestos roofing, but we left them in situ as there was a Smooth Newt sheltering beneath them. All in all, it’s amazing what people will sling over a fence. We were happy to leave the North bank in a better state than it’s been in for many years.

Conservation, Nature Reserves

Icy Wind from Europe – time for a good fire

Burning brash

I nearly stayed home today, with the thermometer on -1 Celsius and a chilly wind off a frozen continent for the windchill factor, but I wrapped up warm with 2 fleeces and a bodywarmer under my jacket, and turned up at the hut. No other volunteers arrived, so Netty and I were the team. She said let’s make a fire: she had come equipped with potatoes to roast in case everybody felt like making a celebration out of it. We left them in the hut. I had a biscuit and a cup of tea and we bravely stepped outside.

I cut up a large Christmas tree with loppers: it was clearly an excellent specimen, as it still had all its leaves a month after Christmas, and smelt pleasantly resiny. It caught fire splendidly, and soon we had a fine blaze. It ate up quantities of brambles. The Holm Oaks that I’d cut also burnt well, if anything even better than the conifer; it seems to contain a lot of resin too.

I didn’t think about being cold at all while I worked, so the fire must indeed have been hot. I went home reeking of smoke.