Abingdon Green Gym Blog

 Blog by Eleanor, photos by David, Sally, Michele and Ursula This session was a joint effort between Green Gym, the Abingdon Naturalists Green Team and Radley Lakes volunteers. The work site was one of the fly ash filled former gravel pits in an area not open to the public and the task was to scythe and rake up the grass to make the area suitable for ground nesting lapwings. After the torrential rain of the past week, we had not been certain until Friday that the task could go ahead, but luckily there was enough dry ground to work on. After a long trek following the old railway track, carrying all the tools, we arrived at the site. The day had started off very cold, but the sun came out and the blue sky and warmth were very welcome. The first task for some people was to cut back some overhanging willow branches to make access easier, but this did not take long. Meanwhile, the scythers began scything. Work begins Soon, there was plenty of grass to rake up and carry to the heaps in t...

 Blog by Eleanor, photos by Sally and Eleanor This Saturday we were at Elizabeth Daryush Garden, Boars Hill. It used to be part of a private garden, which was donated to the Oxford Preservation Trust, and consists of acid grassland, which is comparatively rare in Oxfordshire. There were eleven Green Gymmers plus three volunteers from OPT and even with this number, we wondered if there would be enough of us to complete the various tasks that needed to be done. It had been raining during the night and was still cloudy, so we were hoping that the weather would be kind to us. Sally, our leader for the session explained the various tasks, which had been set out by Rod, OPT's consultant ecologist. We needed to cut back bracken and bramble growing among the broom bushes, remove a forsythia which was a garden escape, cut sprouting shoots and overhanging branches from the sweet chestnut, cut back branches from the woodland area, remove sprouting willow from the pond, also remove crassula, a...

Blog by Sally.  Photos by Adrian and Sally Regular readers of our blog will know that we have a number of trained scythers and this week, they were given the opportunity to hone their skills with the expert guidance of Nicole Clough of Joy of Scything.  BBOWT kindly agreed that we could use the Lashford Lane Nature Reserve for the Improvers Scything Course for the day.   We met in the car park area for the reserve and Nicole quickly scythed a patch of long grass for the improvers to set up their base.  Six Green Gymmers attended the course and, after introductions to find out what everyone hoped to gain from the day, Nicole went over some basic safety principles on handling scythe blades, sharpening techniques and difficult scything.  The Green Gymmers were faced with long grass and also had to negotiate ant hills!  The perfect training ground for the type of conservation scything that we do. Adrian led the remainder of the Green Gymmers for our normal...

Blog by Sally, photos by Kevin and Sally A former sand and limestone quarry, Dry Sandford Pit Nature Reserve is of national importance with its combination of different habitats:  fossil-rich cliffs, alkaline fen, ponds, streams, chalk grassland scrub and woodlands.  We were last here in June to remove Himalayan Balsam, but this week Kevin, our leader for the session, had been briefed by BBOWT, who own and manage the reserve, to work on two areas of the fen - cutting reed and removing invasive scrub (alder, willow and birch) and taking the cut vegetation onto existing heaps to prevent nutrient build-up in the fen, and cutting back overgrowing vegetation around gates and along the path.   We assembled in the reserve car park and took the tools along the path to the bench installed in memory of the Abingdon Naturalists Society's founder, Tony and Susi Searle, where we set up our base.  This overlooks the area of fen where most of the group would work - using the t...