Barton Fields, 21st November 2015

By Andrew -
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


Meeting on Barton Lane

Off to work

Colin with some of his finds from the litter pick - parts of a motorcycle and a golf ball

Tidying up around a hawthorn tree

Burdock in the sun

An oak tree close to the path with some of the lower branches removed

A clear sky at break time

A pile of snowberry shoots

David (one of the green team volunteers) and Victor pulling up snowberry

The close of play

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pinkhill Meadow Nature Reserve, Farmoor Reservoir, 16th March 2019

By Andrew -
Image
Another week, another new site for the Abingdon Green Gym! We met at the car park at Farmoor Reservoir, a healthy turn out of 17 of us, including French father Sebastien, and his eleven-year old son, Maelo, who was joining us for a school project. The session was led by James under the instruction of Hanna Jenkins, the warden of Pinkhill Meadow Nature Reserve, so called because it is right on the banks of the River Thames, just near Pinkhill Lock. It was another blustery day. Will this crazy wind ever let up? We followed Hanna in convoy round the edge of the reservoir, which was choppy to say the least, and parked up on the other side where it was thankfully a little calmer, the high banks of the reservoir providing some shelter. Equipped with our tools, gloves and goggles, we made our way onto the spot on the nature reserve where we were to do our work. Hanna told us that the reserve had been formed in 1991, but some aspects had been neglected over the last ten years. The aim
Read more

Kennington Memorial Field, 29th October 2016

By Andrew -
We have been working at Kennington Memorial Field for a number of years now, clearing scrub from the slopes so that the valley remains an area of grassland and wild flowers. This time Rachel from Oxford Preservation Trust was in charge and led us down to the lower end of the field, where we were to cut back the trees and bushes by several metres and burn the scrub on a bonfire. We were joined by some families with children of varying ages, the youngest only three, who had answered a local appeal for volunteers. We set to work and soon we had a bonfire going. Even the children who were too young to use loppers and saws joined in, carrying branches to the bonfire pile. Despite the drizzly weather they all worked cheerfully. At tea break time we enjoyed some delicious snacks that Rachel had brought and a tin of chocolates supplied by Michele. We found two old birds' nests in the course of the morning and cutting back the scrub revealed a log pile with a rabbit hole under
Read more

Ock Valley Walk, Town End, 22nd June 2013

By Andrew -
Image
Quite a small group gathered for this session and the weather didn't look promising. However, we were pleased to welcome a new member, Laura. We set off for the woodchip path,where we made our encampment. The nettles had grown high and dense since our previous visit, almost concealing the young trees, compising beech, oak, silver birch, cherry and rowan, which we had planted as whips almost two and a half years previously. One of our tasks was to clear the nettles and other vegetation immediately around them. As you can see from the photo of the young cherry, most of the trees are flourishing. Other tasks were to cut up and clear fallen branches into piles and the inevitable litter picking. There was a sharp shower shortly before 11 o'clock but it had stopped when we gathered for a welcome tea break. By the end of the morning we had finished clearing round the trees, tidied away the dead wood and picked up quite a respectable amount of litter, though I suspect t
Read more