Blog by Sally. Photos by David, Michele and Sally
We had a very good turnout, with 17 Green Gymmers, for our second visit to Lincombe Lane Field, one of the Boars Hill sites owned by Oxford Preservation Trust. Once again, we were lucky with the weather - it was a beautiful spring day. We met consultant ecologist, Rod d'Ayala, under whose direction we worked and made our way down the field with the various tools for the jobs which Rod had listed for us. The field slopes towards the village of Sunningwell. At the bottom of the field, there is a wood and part of our task is to restore that to fen. On this visit, however, we were limited in what we could do as it is bird nesting season, so we could only work in certain areas and do limited tasks which meant that we wouldn't disturb any.
Rod briefs the group
We had three main tasks. One was to cut and rake the nettle slope, removing any stray hemlock plants. The second was to dig up hemlock from the clearing in the bramble thicket and the third task was to dig up pendulous sedge, nettles and hemlock and finish raking the area we had cut when we first visited the site in January. If we had time, we were also asked to remove a few small heaps of cut bramble left from our last visit from the slope and consolidate them onto the big heap of cut material.
One of our tasks was to scythe the nettle covered slope, avoiding the area of horsetail. This is before work started.
The nettle patch
Adrian cleared vegetation from around the pond area, whilst Roger on the right scythes nettles.
As we worked in the sunshine, one of the ponies that grazes the field looked over rather inquisitively at us. The grazier had fenced them in so that we could work undisturbed. It was rather tranquil and we enjoyed listening to various birds, including a green woodpecker or yaffle. There were lots of flowers out including speedwell, white dead nettle and gorse.
Jim in action
Another task was to remove hemlock - painstaking work. It was essential to wear gloves as hemlock is poisonous.
Dieuwke, Carolyn, Kevin and Simon clearing the fen area by removing nettles and pendulous sedge
Eleanor and Dieuwke get digging
Wielding baby mattocks and using forks, good progress is made digging up the hemlock.
Joan, Rosie, Carol and Lesley - the hemlock slayers!
Rod and Simon rake up the cut material.
This will form a bund and a dead hedge for invertebrates to shelter.
It was soon time for a welcome break in dappled shade.
Suitably refreshed, we returned back to work continuing where we had left off.
Michele with the ragwort puller on the hunt for hemlock.
How satisfying is that! Rosie with her bramble, roots 'n' all!
The "after" photograph with the clump of horsetails left intact. Horsetails are an amazing plant, being a relict of the ice age.
Kevin found the remains of this muntjac skull.
We think that one of the horns was sawn off possibly for a walking stick handle.
The last hour after break always seems to go quickly and it was a bit of a scramble to try to move the bramble piles - we managed two out of three as vegetation was growing through it, so it was not easy to lift with the pitchforks. It was also a bit of a frantic rake to clear the cut vegetation from the slope where we had not managed to put it onto the existing heap. We then packed away our tools and made our way back up the slope and across the field to our cars and bikes and headed home. We look forward to returning to the site to continue with the work to restore the fen.
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