Monthly Archives: May 2016

The weather forecast was dire – heavy rain all morning.  But it was dry at 10 am and six of us met with Steve Joul at the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods to work on Adel Moor.

In fact it turned out to be a perfect morning for working on the moor – warm, with a pleasant breeze, and a lightly overcast sky with sunny intervals. In addition to the bird song, we heard cattle lowing from the direction of Adel, confirming the impression that we were in the middle of the countryside.

Adel Moor was looking fantastic this morning, with abundant heather and bilberry plants, and two clumps of gorse in full flower.

Our task this morning was to remove saplings and brambles from the moor and between us we removed several hundred seedlings and saplings and one mature tree.

We planned to do some bracken bashing today because bracken has taken over several hundred square yards of the moor, suppressing all other plant life, but it had only just started to appear.  So we will have to bash the bracken (the traditional way of controlling bracken is to bash it)  later in the season.

Thanks to Steve and everyone who came for a very enjoyable morning’s work.

We held our AGM this evening in the bar of Old Leo’s Rugby Club.

The minutes of the 2015 AGM were approved, and the Chair and Treasurer gave their reports. The Chair’s report is set out below.

Nominations for officers and committee took place, the following being the result:

Chair: Roger Gilbert; Treasurer: Judith White

Secretary: Stephanie Clarke; Auditor: David Hall

Committee (in addition to the above, and in no particular order):

Rob Hall; David Smith; David Hampshire; Brian Joyce

We have ten places on the committee, but only eight members at the moment.  If you are interested in joining us, please let the Chair know.

Thank you to everyone who attended. Thank you to all the officers and committee members who have served last year and volunteered to serve this coming year. Tom Swire stood down from the committee and we are grateful for his work and support over the years.  Hopefully, we shall still see him at our monthly events.

Thank you finally to Old Leo’s Rugby Club for letting us use their bar for the AGM.

The Chair’s report

To prepare this review, I had a look at our blog and we have had about 20 events since our last AGM – which is two more than in the year prior to our  AGM in May 2015. It has been another varied, interesting and enjoyable year.

If you have not had a look at the blog, I think that it is well worth doing so. I find it amazing how much we have done together, and I get very happy feelings looking at the pictures and reading the reports of our achievements.

Events

We have two kinds of events: the tasks (the playing out in the woods events) and the educational events (the playing out in the woods events!). In both, we are incredibly lucky to be supported in what we do by Steve Joul, senior ranger with Leeds CC.

Educational/social events

There have been four of these in the last year:

A visit to Alan Yarker’s small holding and survey of meadow plants on 14 June

I missed this as I was on holiday, but it was a great success – apart from the weather. We are very grateful to Alan who is opening his small holding to FOAW again this year. Steve Joul made a survey of meadow plants

Bat walk on 4 September

This was a tremendous success. Our treasurer rang me about 40 minutes before we met and said she was bringing her grandchildren, so there would be about five of us. In fact, people kept arriving and in the end there were between 75 and 80 people. Unfortunately, there were very few bats – though this did not seem to affect the excitement and enthusiasm of participants as we walked round the woods. In fact, each time a bat registered on the 9 or so bat detectors it seemed even more exciting.

Tree walk on 18 October

This was an afternoon walk with Steve Joul. We had an excellent turn out of about 35 including many children. It was a lovely walk.

 

Birdsong walk

Fifteen of us joined Steve Joul for a birdsong walk last Saturday. It was a beautiful morning and we and heard many birds. Perhaps the highlight for me was to see a mistle thrush collecting mud and flying up to a fork in a tree to build her nest.

Tasks

We have had our usual varied range of “tasks”.

Firstly, there has been our regular litterpicking whose importance cannot be overstated. Litterpicking makes a huge difference to the woods. I haven’t kept a tally but we must have picked up well over 60 bags of litter over the year.

Adel Moor

Over the last year we have had two mornings working on Adel Moor (May and July) and – in conjunction with the other groups who work on the moor – we are now seeing a huge improvement – a lot of the young saplings have gone and there is lots of new heather coming up. I know that Steve Joul is very pleased indeed with the progress that is being made.

Path improvements

Path clearance has been another regular task. Over the last year Friends have worked on improving paths – clearing mud, cutting back branches and removing fallen trees – on two occasions.

Adel Bog

In 2011 BTCV cleared a lot of purple moor grass from Adel Bog, paid for in part by Leeds CC and the Parish Council. We have continued that work clearing a lot of encroaching vegetation such as brambles which were slowly turning the bog into dry land. Bog plants are returning.

Nest boxes

We had two days out in January surveying the nest boxes and the good news is that they were almost all used. You can feel pleased that there is a good chance that the great tits and blue tits in the woods were reared in a FOAW nestbox!

The Buck Stone

Three years ago we did two days work on the Buck Stone and made it accessible to the public again. On 24 April this year we spent a morning tidying it up and we removed a large amount of brambles.

The hospice woodland

We had two sessions working on the Hospice Woodland one with with Steve Joul – thinning out the trees as they have been planted too close together – and the other picking up litter, clearing encroaching brambles and clearing paths. A very enjoyable and productive morning

Adel Pond

Adel Pond is one of our regular jobs now. In October we got down and dirty clearing silt out of the pond – using our new pond gloves – and we made a big difference. It is looking great at the moment.

The orchid meadow

Last year we had a tremendous display of common spotted orchids in a field near the cricket pitch. We are going to do some work this year to protect them from encroaching trees and himalayan balsam.

Himalayan Balsam

Speaking of Himalayan Balsam we had an event at short notice clearing it from the end of Crag Lane. What became clear is that it is a task which needs to be carefully targeted because it really is a hopeless task to eradicate the plant.

The Christmas Garlands:

We had another session making Christmas garlands for sale to raise funds and we raised about £100.

Fundraising

Currently, we have sufficient funds to meet our expenses.

The future

We will be publishing our program for the next year shortly. We will be having the usual variety of tasks. Our next event is Saturday the 21 May when we will be litterpicking and working on Adel Moor!

At the beginning of July, Alan Yarker, who is a local small holder will give a talk to Friends, and following that Steve will lead volunteers in surveying a meadow on Alan’s smallholding.

We are hoping to get the local scouts and guides involved – possibly bracken bashing this Summer

Thanks

So in summary, I would just like to end by thanking all the people we need to thank for supporting us over the last year.

First of all, I would like to thank Steve Joul for all the support – and tuition – he has given us over the year.

I would like to thank Alwoodley Parish Council and our local city councillors for their financial support and encouragement.

I really must thank Tony and Old Leo’s for letting us use their facilities for making the Christmas garlands and have our AGM here. Please after the meeting, can you please drink as much as you can so that they’ll have us again!

I would like to thank our committee and officers for all their support and hard work over the year.

And finally, I would like to thank all our wonderful Friends – whether here or absent – for the hard work you have all put in over the year. I hope that tonight’s summary has reminded you of some happy mornings or evenings and shown you that you have all made a fantastic improvement to the state of Adel Woods and to our local community.

Thank you!

Steve Joul led a group of enthusiastic birdwatchers this morning.  Here is a report, written by the man himself – plus at the end a few additional miscellaneous sightings.  In all we spotted 27 species of bird – not bad for a morning’s birdwatching in a woodland on the edge of the city.

Adel Wood – Birdsong Walk 07.05.16

This Friends of Adel Woods walk was led by myself, Steve Joul, Leeds City Council Countryside Ranger. 15 people met in the car park at 7am when much of the talk from regulars was of how much better the weather was today compared to 12 months ago when we undertook our walk during heavy rain!

Although it was cool at first the sun gradually forced its way through the haze as a hot and sunny day developed.

After introductions, we watched a Great Spotted Woodpecker and listed to Chiffchaff before walking down the track towards the Cricket Club. Along the way were Wren, Robin, Song Thrush and Blackcap.

At the cricket ground a male Mistle Thrush fed on the pitch before flying up and singing from a Poplar tree, freshly clothed in shiny green leaves.

We then crossed Adel Moor where a Willow Warbler was singing and made our way to the Buckstone a sandstone feature that gives its name to the nearby housing estate. This had been recently tidied by the Friends of Adel Woods.

Next, we made our way to the Seven Arches Aqueduct which brought from Eccup Reservoir Leeds’ first alternative water supply to the River Aire. Here, we spotted a Nuthatch calling and searching upside down on a branch for food.

Further along the Meanwood Valley Trail we watched another Mistle Thrush carrying a large quantity of mud in her beak. She returned several times to build her nest in the fork of a Birch tree.

Arriving at the Slabbering Baby Spring, which marks the former location of Verity’s Tea Rooms, those who had important business to attend to returned to the car park. However, it was developing into such a lovely morning tht the remainder of the group decided to continue past Mill Fall Pond (the newt pond) and along Adel Beck to the Stairfoot Steps.

Along the way we enjoyed the colourful streamside flora which included Golden Saxifrage, Hard Fern and a superb bank of Marsh Marigold. Those at the front of the party also saw a Red Fox.

Up the steps we climbed, then past Adel Crag to the Hospice Wood where we were delighted by a trio of neat and colourful Bullfinches.

27 Bird species seen or heard

Blackbird: too many to count

Blackcap: 4 males singing: good views of 1 perched.  2 males chasing 1 female close by.

Blue tit:  too many to count

Bullfinch:  2 males chasing with female close by

Carrion crow: 2 including 1 mobbing a red kite

Chiff Chaff:  6 calling males including 1 bathing in a puddle

Dunnock: 1 pair seen, not calling

Goldfinch [noted by Sylvia]

Great spotted woodpecker: 1 female called observed in a tall tree

Great tit: 7 males singing

Grey heron: 1 flew over

Jay [noted by Roger]

Jackdaw:  1 flew over

Long tailed tit: 3 pairs seen foraging; 1 pair flew to nest

Magpie [noted by Roger]

Mallard:  3 flew over

Mistle thrush: 1 male singing in tree; 1 female carrying mud to nest

Nuthatch:  3 calling

Red kite:  1 pair, mobbed by carrion crow

Robin: too many to count

Skylark:  1 flying over neighbouring farmland

 

Song thrush:

Starling:

Stock dove: 1 pair occupying owl box

Swallow:  1 male singing on the wing

Wood pigeon: too many to count

Wren: too many to count.

Miscellaneous Sightings

In addition to the above, the group also saw:  3 blackbird eggs (hatched or destroyed by a predator); 8 campers and a tent; speckled wood butterfly; dog violet; ivy leaved speedwell; greater stitchwort; seven spotted ladybird; peacock butterfly; small tortoiseshell butterfly; orange tip butterfly (thanks for Sylvia for this information).