It was a very cold and wintry, though thankfully dry, start to the session as we met outside the Sophos building along Barton Lane. Despite the plummeting temperatures, a total of around 20 green gymmers and members of Abingdon Naturalist Society's green team met for this work party at the Barton Fields nature reserve.
As usual at this location, we were working under the direction of warden David Guyoncourt. A few different tasks were offered, though the predominant duty was to grub up the invasive snowberry plants alongside the Sustrans track running through the site - to allow the native tree and shrub species to thrive.
Elsewhere, unwanted hawthorn and sycamore growth was removed from the wildflower meadow areas, some dangerously low branches from some of the trees close to the main path were dealt with and a litter pick was also conducted.
It was fairly tough work tackling the snowberry, involving digging it out with mattocks, spades and forks! The roots are surprisingly deep and far-reaching for such small shrubs, but with quite a number of us assigned to this detail, we at least made some good headway.
-Andrew
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| Meeting on Barton Lane |
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| Off to work |
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| Colin with some of his finds from the litter pick - parts of a motorcycle and a golf ball |
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| Tidying up around a hawthorn tree |
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| Burdock in the sun |
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| An oak tree close to the path with some of the lower branches removed |
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| A clear sky at break time |
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| A pile of snowberry shoots |
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| David (one of the green team volunteers) and Victor pulling up snowberry |
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| The close of play |
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