WORK PARTY REPORTS - Latest
Archived Work Party Reports can be found by clicking on the year:
Thrift Wood - 2nd November 2008
Thrift Wood is a regular location for one of the Branch work parties. The central glade in the wood supports a large quantity of Cow Wheat, the larval food plant of the
Heath Fritillary butterfly.
However, each year, hornbeam and chestnut saplings, together with bramble scrub threatens to smother the low growing annual Cow Wheat.
The aim of the work party is twofold; firstly, to cut back the scrub and secondly to open up new areas by coppicing along the edges of the glade. A Wildlife Trust working party the previous week, had partly
cut the scrub using a tractor driven flail, but this did not cut everything and had left pieces of growth over the whole area.
The morning, which began rather misty, quickly cleared and became a very nice mild autumn day with some sun. The party was split up, some clearing an area of bramble and saplings on the NW edge, some
coppicing on the eastern edge of the central area, and John strimming the whole area, cutting the growth left by the flail. In no time Val had a fire going – no mean achievement when everything was wet from
heavy rain the previous day.
George & John get to grips with some major coppicing
© Richard Bigg |
Cutting, carrying & burning . . . all in a day's conservation work
© Richard Bigg |
George & John get to grips with some major coppicing
© Richard Bigg |
Cutting, carrying & burning . . . all in a day's conservation work
© Richard Bigg |
During a stop for lunch, one of the inhabitants of the wood came along to say thanks for what we were doing – a Heath Fritillary caterpillar crawled up on to Louise’s boot!
Wood and scrub was burnt on the fire, Laura helping with that operation, and the day finished with everyone raking and disposing of the strimmer cuttings in the wood.
Thanks go to all the team:
Conservation Officer: Richard Bigg
Site Warden: George Fletcher
BC Volunteers : Vince Lea, Louise Bacon, John Dawson, Carl and Val Blamire, Norman Feltwell, Owen ….. and daughter Laura, and David.
A well-earned break for a light lunch
© Richard Bigg |
A very welcome visitor at lunchtime - a Heath Fritillary caterpillar!
© Richard Bigg |
A well-earned break for a light lunch
© Richard Bigg |
A very welcome visitor at lunchtime - a Heath Fritillary caterpillar!
© Richard Bigg |
Devil's Dyke, near Newmarket - 19th October 2008
Eight members of the branch, all from Cambridgeshire, turned up for the first work party of the season, including two first-time volunteers for the group, Sean and Rebecca O’Driscoll, who have plenty of experience with conservation
work from time spent at the WWT reserve at Welney.
An area of the Dyke at the far end of the first section (up to the Cambridge Gap) was selected as being in need of scrub and grass removal, it being quite heavily overgrown.
A combination of 2 bladed brushcutters and 2 nylon strimmers were use to remove the scrub and grass while the other half of the group set to work on the denser patches of scrub with bowsaws and loppers. After a good hour of work,
we had a brief break and some jobs were swapped around – the steep slopes and heavy tools mean that a change is as good as a rest on this site! A couple of people started the all-important job of raking off the cut material to the bottom
of the slope, so that the best area of grassland is maintained in a low nutrient state and there is plenty of short turf and bare ground for insects to bask and for plants such as the Horseshoe Vetch to germinate.
By lunch time we were really able to see that we had made a big impact on the habitat, and with the pleasant sunshine and being sheltered from the brisk wind at the bottom of the ditch, it was really satisfying. Most of the scrub was now
gone from the section we had chosen to work on, apart from the least troublesome stuff in the bottom of the ditch. In the afternoon we continued cutting with the power tools and had more people raking. John didn’t relinquish his scrubcutter
except for occasions when he was called upon by the rest of us with a technical problem that only he could resolve! As usual he was the last one to switch off the engine and call it a day, by 3pm or so we had cleared at least 150m of the dyke and it really looked good.
Before work began . . .
© Val Perrin |
. . . and the team (minus the one behind the camera!)
© Val Perrin |
Before work began . . .
© Val Perrin |
. . . and the team (minus the one behind the camera!)
© Val Perrin |
After the tools were packed away, we spent some time searching for the overwintering larvae of
Dingy Skipper, searching an uncut area where they had been seen ovipositing in the spring. The equivalent of nearly 6 person-hours were spent
looking at Horseshoe Vetch all over the bank, but to no avail. We are a little concerned that some of these larvae get cut & raked off by our operations, although it will only be a small proportion of the population. Various ways to research their
requirements on the dyke are being planned, and hopefully this will lead to an increase long-term, particularly if we can advise on management for other sections where they are currently in very low numbers.
Many thanks to the team: Vince, Louise, John, Lynne, Val, Sean, Rebecca & Hilary.
