Kennington Memorial Field - 16th September 2023

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 This blog was written by Eleanor. Photos by Kevin

Twelve of us assembled in the playing field car park, ready for our session at Kennington Memorial Field, a sloping valley of chalk grassland, the original purpose of which was to be a war memorial, and is now managed by Oxford Preservation Trust.

Hannah from OPT had shown me areas of scrub which needed cutting back. It is important to keep on top of this work to preserve the grassland habitat. There were cattle grazing on the field, eight bullocks, which will shortly be taken off by the farmer.

We also needed to clear around two of the gates, particularly the one leading from the main Kennington Road, which was getting very overgrown so Carolyn and Helen E set off to do that. The rest of us set to work clearing the scrub around the trees, mostly brambles and briars and carrying the cut material to the existing piles in the wooded area. The cattle wandered around, at one stage taking an interest in our biscuits, but soon moved off.

We disturbed a small frog and at one stage a mouse or vole, which moved too fast to be identified. On one of the briars there was a large "robins pincushion" or bedeguar gall, which you can see in the photo, caused by the larvae of the tiny gall wasp, diplolepis rosae. These can often be seen on dog rose stems in Autumn, but do the plant little harm.

After our tea break we carried on with the work and stopped the cutting about 12.10 to do the final clearing up. As we were making our way back to the car park, we heard the sound of cattle running and saw they were being chased by a dog. The owner had two large dogs, both off their leads. Too many people don't seem to know they must keep their dogs under control around livestock.



Preparing to work




Curious cattle




Tea break




                                                                                                       
 

A "robin's pincushion"

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