Frilford Heath Golf Club, 2nd December 2017

By Andrew -
We were back at Boundary House Fen, Frilford Heath Golf Club for our penultimate session of the year, workin site supervisor Rod d'Ayala who directed our tasks.

 Essentially, we continued with raking the cut reeds from the fen.  In common with our session here back in October, we concentrated on transporting the reeds to the stream running through the centre of the area. Rod has added a number of dams to the stream to encourage the water to flood out onto the fen and improve the wetland habitat.  By piling the reeds into the stream between the dams, this exaggerates the effect. Similarly, there are two ponds bordering the fen and these were to be filled with reeds also.

No sooner had we assembled and received instruction, before the fen claimed it's first casualty of the morning.  Michelle lost her footing beside the stream and got a soaking.  A volunteer down, we continued on, but not without further incident. Three more of us filled our wellies with water as we attempted to trample reeds down into the water.

Squelchy boots aside, we continued apace and raked the reeds into piles before carting them off via drag bag and pitchfork to the specified locations. 

By the time that the break came, we were ready for the delicious Anzac biscuits that Carolyn had baked to go along with our tea and coffee.

For the second half we concentrated on shifting all the reeds closest to the stream, and raking the ones at the outer edges into piles for collecting on a subsequent occasion. This we completed just before packing up at 12:30pm, ready for the march back across the golf course and home.
-Andrew



Heading to the fen.

A large bug hotel spotted on the golf course! Not our handiwork though.

Raking begins!

Part of the stream.

Graham and Dieuwke empty a drag bag of reeds into the stream.

The state of play before the interval.

Golf ball haul.

Kevin passes around the biscuits.

Andrew's welly mishap.

The partially dammed stream.

Reedstacks!

Matt raking.

Turkeytail fungus.

A pine tree standing tall in the middle of the site.

Packing up.

Preparing for departure.


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