Frilford Heath Golf Club, 19th November 2016

By Andrew -
Another session was held at Boundary House Fen, within Frilford Heath Golf Course on Saturday. It was our first trip here for a few months, and as usual, we gathered in the main club car park before driving the short distance along the road to the ground-staffs' premises to park and walk to the work site.  Or at least that was the plan - instead, our convoy arrived at the turn-off to be greeted with a locked gate, and we had no option but to park on the grass verge beside the main road and carry our tools a longer distance to the fen than usual.  On the way we passed by Two Pine Fen, where we have held a couple of weekday sessions, this year and last.  Unfortunately, the reeds had not been cut as had been hoped, and the area looked rather overgrown and neglected.

 The longer walk meant that we didn't arrive at the Boundary House site until 10am.  It was still rather cold and frosty at this time and some warm-up exercises were performed to get us going.  While the session was led by Kevin this week, as usual at this location Judy Webb (representing Natural England) was present to oversee our operations.  Raking the cut reeds was the main task, with the removal of some small trees and log debris also on the agenda.

 The raking was intially quite tricky since the ground was frozen, but soon after we started, it thawed quickly and we raked the reeds into piles and then either pitch-forked them to piles at the top of the site, or filled a builders' drag bag with them and hauled them across.

 James began to remove some tree growth around the perimeter as the rest of us were occupied with the raking, and was later joined by Carolyn and Lesley.

 The rakers worked from one side of the site to another throughout the morning and made impressive headway, but were unable to complete the task in the time available.  We will be back in the new year to continue though, and during the past few years working here, it is clear that we have made considerable progress in restoring this locally rare habitat.
-Andrew


Unexpected car-parking arrangements!

Warm-up exercises.
Frozen ground early-on.

Blewits growing amidst the old reed piles.


Lesley and Carolyn remove branches from an old Ash stump.

A plethora of honey fungus.

Graham and Kevin hauling a drag bag of cut reeds.

Finishing-up.

A view across the fen at the end of the session.


Autumn colours on the walk back.

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

Frilford Heath SSSI, 1st September 2012

By Andrew -
Image
A pleasant and crucially, rain-free Saturday morning was spent once again at Frilford Heath, our last session of the year at this particular site.  As usual for this location, Himalayan Balsam pulling was the order of the day. Approaching the site, it became clear to the seven volunteers that despite all the hard work put in during the year, the battle against the Balsam is far from won!  Large swathes of the plant still exist, to the detriment of the native species.  However, real signs of progress are also very apparent.   We concentrated our efforts at the far-end of the site, the same area that we have largely focused on during other, recent sessions.  With only a small group this time, only a limited area could be covered, but much effort was put in to ensure that the plant was cleared as far as possible at least in this particular spot.   The task was complicated by the fact that at this time of year, the Balsam has developed seeds.  These had to be collected for destroying
Read more