Blog and photos by Sally
On a very wintry Tuesday, 8 volunteers (5 from Abingdon Green Gym) turned out for a midweek session at Two Pines Fen on Frilford Heath Golf Course to cut the tall vegetation and rake it. We can only work safely on this Fen when one of the courses is closed for maintenance and today was the day for the Red Course to be closed. The morning had started with a flurry of snow and temperatures were forecast to rise to 2 degrees. Thank goodness for thermals! It was in marked contrast to the glorious sunshine of the previous Saturday, when Green Gym were working on the adjoining Boundary House Fen.
4 people arrived at the start of the session - we were all trained scythers, including Mike from the Barton Fields Green Team, David and Jim and we made our way to the Red 16th tee where we we able to set up our base camp under the Men's tee, ensuring that we had our scythes, the first aid kit and the all-important Green Gym biscuits.
Two Pines Fen, so called because of the two Scot's pine trees (in the middle of the photograph) that grow in it. This was the scene as we arrived.
The scythers soon got going and it was not long before reinforcements arrived with Eleanor and Susan and then a bit later, Dr Judy Webb, who is an ecologist, and they started raking up the vegetation into heaps for the Golf Club to remove at a later date or into the stream, whichever was easier. The stream acts as a drain for the fen, and we need to re-wet it in order for the fen specialist plants to thrive. By packing in the cut material, this will rot down and gradually raise the level of the stream. Judy came bearing the sad news that nearly all the rare plants that exist on Two Pines Fen have nationally been re-graded under the latest survey from the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) and are now one step closer to extinction, which makes our work here even more valuable as by cutting and raking the tall vegetation, we allow light for seeds to germinate and for emerging plants, which cannot compete with the tall reed and sedges, and we disturb the seed bank through raking, thereby improving their chance to flourish.
The vegetation that needed to be cut and raked. Is that a bit of blue in the sky?
By break time, the piles of cut reed were getting bigger and the watery sunshine was getting a little stronger
A couple of our finds - the top is a harvest mouse nest and the bottom is the egg case of the wasp spider, which has black and yellow stripes to mimic a wasp. These were admired by us all at break time and we enjoyed our hot drinks and biscuits.
We found lots of golf balls from hapless golfers and put these by the side of the track for the Green Keepers to collect.
We could see as we got closer to the centre of the Fen that the black bog rush, which has very fine leaves, had spread as these had been marked last year by canes with orange ribbon tied to them. This is very encouraging and shows that the work that we are doing is making a difference. Judy mentioned that this was one of the most important areas in the county for marsh helleborines and other orchids.
Eleanor raking
The scything and raking continued and, all the while, the Green Keepers went past us on their buggies and gators with lots of cut gorse, which they were burning. A couple of them called out to thank us for our efforts, which was nice.
At lunch time, Eleanor and Susan had to leave us. Judy stayed on for a little longer and Kathy, who is one of the volunteers with BBOWT, our local Wildlife Trust, joined us to continue raking.
Given the number of volunteers, we decided to stop scything at about 2.00pm and concentrate on the raking, so it was all hands on deck at that point.
Kathy raking into the stream
Jim, Kathy, Mike and David after a hard day's work
Showing off the the cleared area
The cut vegetation which we managed to heap into the stream. We missed Rod's ministrations as he would have trampled this down, but unfortunately he was still unwell.
The Red Course side as we left it to come home
We did not quite finish the cut and rake of the Red Course side, but when we return to the fen next month for the Green Course side, we hope to be able to do some forays to complete it, especially if volunteer numbers allow. A huge thank you to everyone who braved the elements. It could have been a lot worse as we normally encounter tempests or hurricanes for our midweek "specials" at Two Pines Fen, so we were all quite relieved really as the day turned out, and the fen glowed beautifully in the wintry sunshine. We look forward to coming back for the Green Course side in February.
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