Monthly Archives: August 2010

It is amazing how a bit of work in the woods can rejuvenate you and improve your looks .

Notice how the lumberjack in this picture seems to have grown in stature and beauty (as compared with the previous picture) after clearing the paths.

Silver Birch seem to be falling like nine pins at the moment.  With this one, the top 30 feet of the trunk had snapped off and fallen across the route of the Meanwood Valley Trail (to the left) and the path up to the cricket ground on the right.  Believe it or not, this is the same spot as that shown in the previous picture – use the two trunks in a V shape in the centre of the picture as a reference point.

Fifty nine (!) of us joined Steve Joul for a walk around the woods, culminating as dusk arrived, with a batwatch.  We were equipped with bat detectors and information sheets about the different species of bat which we might see.

It was a wonderful warm evening with a clear sky and as it was still too light for the bats to be active,  Steve took us up to Adel Moor where he explained about its importance as part of the Meanwood Valley nature reserve, and he showed us various mushrooms and toadstools on the way.  We then followed the Meanwood Valley Trail to the picnic area, arriving as it dusk fell.

There was much excitement when the first bat was seen, and even more when the bat detectors picked up the echolocation system of the bats as they flitted over head. The clear sky enabled us to get a very clear view of the bats.

The detectors pick up the sound of the bats and convert it to a pitch which the human ear can hear. It is very exciting to hear a loud clicking start on the detector, rapidly rise to a crescendo and then fade as a bat sweeps past.

Different species of bats echo locate using sounds of different frequencies and we were able to detect Pipistrelles, Britain’s smallest bat, whose signature frequency is about 50 kiloherz,  and Noctules, one of Britain’s larger bat species whose frequency is about 22 kiloherz.

After about half an hour at the picnic area, we moved to the practice rugby field.  There seemed to be fewer bats around here, but the temperature was noticeably cooler than in the picnic area, so perhaps there were fewer insects for the bats to feed on.

We benefited from three extra treats.  A firework display from somewhere on Stairfoot Lane at about 9 pm, and music from a wedding marquee on the rugby field – your correspondent particularly enjoyed a cover version of Something Tells Me I’m into Something Good, by Herman’s Hermits.  Finally at about 9.40 a chinese lantern floated by in the night sky – the first time Steve had ever seen one!

A big thank you to the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers who spent two days (at our request) pulling up trees from Adel Moor.  They did a fantastic job.

Adel Moor is the last surviving heath in north Leeds and a special habitat – lizards can be found basking there on a warm summer morning. The habitat is under threat because trees – particularly birch and oak – are moving in and taking over.  It is a constant battle to keep the trees at bay, but one worth striving to win.

The Friends will be spending two hours next Saturday clearing small saplings from the moor – much better use of time and effort to remove small trees now, than to allow them to mature to the point that we need to bring in mechanical assistance or poison them.