A glorious sunrise over Alwoodley at 8 am, after several days of intense cold.
This morning, five of us met in the Stairfoot Lane carpark at 10 am. Although the weather had started to thaw, the carpark was still a dangerous sheet of ice.
Our goals this morning were path clearing and litterpicking.
Clearing holly along the “middle” path
We all set off together to the steps down to the stream and took the path to the left about four steps down. As we went, we trimmed back holly and removed as far as we could branches which had fallen across the path.
Just before we reached Adel Bog, we found a couple of trees had fallen across the path. They were too big for us to tackle, but we removed branches which were not supporting the trees. As we did so, we found an old blackbirds nest among the branches.
A blackbird’s nest in Adel Woods
When we reached the Slabbering Baby, we went down to Spring Hill bridge and made our way back along the path alongside the stream all the way to Stairfoot Cottage.
Clearing obstacles along the path by the stream
While we were making our way along the paths, Peter picked up a bag of litter.
Thank you to all who took part this morning!
About Friends of Adel Woods
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various “work parties”, and we also put on educational events. We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods and make new friends. Please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website if you would like to take part in our activities.
Today our local countryside ranger, David Preston, led a team of four enthusiastic volunteers working in Buckstone Fields where there is a mature apple tree which needed a bit of love and care. Meeting at 10 am at the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods on Buckstone Road, they worked till 2 pm.
David led the team in pruning the tree to remove dead wood and open it out, in thinning the birch trees around the apple tree, and making stakes (for future use) and habitat piles with the offcuts.
This event was arranged by Alwoodley 2030 rather than Friends of Adel Woods but two of the volunteers are also members of FOAW.
Thank you to David and all the volunteers for doing a great job!
Alwoodley 2030 is a group of local people living, working or frequently spending time in Alwoodley, Leeds who care deeply about climate and biodiversity and aim to take action to make Alwoodley zero-carbon, and to look after our local habitats and eco-systems.
The Seven Arches aqueduct, with a fallen tree in the foreground.
A lovely day for part two of our annual nest box clean and survey. This morning we had a team of six and we decided to complete our survey by starting at the Seven Arches and making our way up the Meanwood Valley Trail.
When we reached the Seven Arches we found a huge tree had been blown over by the recent high winds, but were rewarded by a fine view of the aqueduct following recent clearance work carried out by David Preston and his team of Meanwood Valley Volunteer Rangers.
The morning session….
This blog post will focus on what we found during our work today. You can find a lot of information about the purpose of cleaning the nest boxes, the birds that use them, and the kind of things we find, in yesterday’s blog entry, which can be found here.
This morning we cleaned and surveyed twelve tit boxes and one treecreeper box.
Of the twelve tit boxes, ten contained tit nests (of which three at least were blue tit nests), one contained a nuthatch nest, and we don’t seem to have made a record of what we found in the twelfth. The treecreeper box contained a lot of leaves indicating it had been used by a squirrel for roosting.
A nuthatch nest in one of our woodstone boxes
Nuthatch nests are very different from tit nests. Nuthatches will use tit boxes but usually plaster around any gaps with mud, and rather than using moss, grass and feathers as nesting material, nuthatches use material chips of bark, so the nest looks like a bowl of branflakes! The nest we found today was sparse and there was not a lot of material so it is possible it was not completed. You can see a better example of a nuthatch nest in one of our wooden nest boxes photographed in January 2019 here.
The treecreeper box is a bit unusual. Treecreepers are so called because they creep up the side of tree, looking for bugs to eat. They nest high up in small gaps behind the bark of trees, and the tree creeper nest box is intended to offer something similar to the gap behind bark. It is about twice the depth of a tit box, and the entrance is on the side of the box, near the bark of the tree. We have found a tit nest in our treecreeper box in previous years, but this year we found a lot of leaves indicating that it had been used for roosting by a squirrel. You can see a photograph of the treecreeper box here
One first this year was that we found a large amount of “sawdust” in box 39, and a large hole in the back of the box. Since the back of the box was against the trunk of the tree, the hole could not have been made from the outside by a woodpecker and it must have been made from the inside by a woodmouse.
Looking expectantly to see what will be in the box!Cleaning one of our nest boxesInspecting the job!
We retired for lunch, a piece of Christmas cake and a comfort break at about 1.25 pm.
The afternoon session….
Re-energised after lunch, and raring to go!
This afternoon, starting from just below the Slabbering Baby, we made our way up the Meanwood Valley Trail and surveyed the final seven nest boxes – six tit boxes and one robin box.
The robin box had not been used. The tit boxes had all been used though one nest appeared not to have been completed. One nest contained five unhatched eggs and another four unhatched eggs. However, since great tits lay seven to nine eggs and blue tits eight to twelve eggs, the nests may well have been successful.
Cleaning nest box 29 at the Slabbering BabyThe nest and four unhatched eggs in nest box 42Measuring the entrance hole on one of our wooden boxes
Friends of Adel Woods made and put up our wooden boxes under the tuition of Steve Joul in January 2010 and January 2011. We also purchased and put up a number of woodstone boxes in 2013. The woodstone boxes are made of a mixture of cement and sawdust. The advantages of woodstone boxes is that they do not rot and are usually easier to clean. On the other hand, they are very heavy!
Cleaning out one of our woodstone boxesWinding up at 4.30 pm
In summary
Yesterday and today we surveyed and cleaned out forty one nest boxes – thirty six tit boxes, four robin boxes and one treecreeper box. Apart from one nest box, for which we do not seem to have made a record, all of the tit boxes were used last Spring. One of the tit boxes was used by a pair of nuthatches. None of the robin boxes had been used by robins, but two had been used by tits for nesting and two by squirrels for roosting. The treecreeper box had been used by a squirrel for roosting.
Thank you to everyone who helped over the weekend: thanks to Steve for letting us use his ladder; and thanks to Andrew who transported the ladder to Alwoodley!
About Friends of Adel Woods
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various jobs or “work parties”, and we also put on educational events. We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods and make new friends. Please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website if you would like to take part in our activities.
A fine but cold day for day one of our annual survey and clean of our nest boxes in Adel Woods. At 10 am we had an amazing turnout of nine people - and later on twelve when three more people joined us in the woods!
We have thirty eight tit boxes and four robin boxes in Adel Woods, so we had our work cut out! Tit boxes are the familiar nest boxes with a round hole in the front. Robins will not use tit boxes and prefer a box with a large opening at the front (as shown below) placed near the ground – or not to use a nest box at all.
We need to clean the nest boxes because tits and robins do not re-use nests from previous years. In 2021 we were unable to clean out the nest boxes due to the covid lockdown and when we surveyed the nest boxes in January 2022 we found that in Spring 2021 nests had been built on top of the previous year’s nests. This probably happens all the time in natural nesting holes, but it is not a good start for young chicks because the old nesting material is frequently full of fleas and mites, and sometimes is very wet.
A robin box made by Friends of Adel Woods – note the large entrance.
Our morning’s work
We set off down Crag Lane and then up the “diagonal” path on the right hand side of Crag Lane, just before Old Leo’s car park. We paused at the entrance to the path to have a look at some Yellow Brain fungus (see yesterday’s blog post) and then started work cleaning our first nest box, number 17.
FOAW’s tit boxes have three different sizes of entrance hole. The two larger sizes, 28mm or 32mm, allow access to blue tits, great tits or nuthatches. The smallest entrance hole, 25mm, permits access only for blue tits. Coal tits may use nest boxes, but prefer a nest box only a metre or so above the ground so they do not use our tit boxes which are all at least three metres from the ground.
Nest box 17 seemed to contain two typical tit nests made of moss and grass – a great tit nest containing two unhatched eggs, and, on top of it, a blue tit nest containing one unhatched egg. Blue tit and great tit eggs look very similar, but great tit eggs are slightly bigger (17.5mm x 13.5mm) than blue tit eggs (15.6mm x 12mm).
Replacing the damp proofing on box number 17
We have covered all our wooden tit boxes with damp proofing plastic to keep them dry. This has been very successful over the years, but the plastic gets holes where pecked by the birds and this year we had to replace or patch up many of the nest boxes.
A typical tit nest made of moss, feathers and grass found in box 18
This morning we surveyed eleven tit boxes and two robin boxes. Ten tit boxes had nests inside them, and one a partly built tit nest. Some had one or two unhatched eggs concealed in the nesting material but since great tits lay seven to nine eggs and blue tits eight to twelve eggs, we infer that most of the nests were successful even though some eggs did not hatch. One nest contained the skeleton of a fully formed bird – probably a chick, but perhaps an adult. One contained a sweet chestnut shell, indicating that after the tits departed a wood mouse moved in for a while.
Turning to the robin boxes, one contained lots of leaves and had clearly been used by a squirrel for roosting, while the other contained a partly formed tit nest.
A blackbird nest at the base of a downey birch
One of the most exciting finds was made by Steve Joul when he found a blackbird nest near the ground at the back of the tree on which nest box number 8 was hanging.
No report on our nest box surveys is complete without a photo of Steve climbing a ladder!Nest box material well and truly processed by insects and containing larvae or maggotsViewing “Tina’s nest box” – a posh Schwegler box near Old Leo’s clubhouse
We continued working till about 1.20pm when we adjourned for lunch and a piece of Christmas cake. We had surveyed the nest boxes in Alwoodley Plantation, the boxes on the path running north adjacent to the disused rugby pitch, and the nest boxes on Crag Lane behind the rugby clubhouse.
Our afternoon session
Five of us resumed work at about 2.30pm and surveyed the nest boxes along Crag Lane from the rugby club to the picnic area, and then started to make our way down the Meanwood Valley Trail. surveying and cleaning nine nest boxes – eight tit boxes and one robin box.
The robin box contained a tit nest and leaves on top of it suggesting that a squirrel had used it for roosting. Of the tit boxes, seven contained a nest, and one contained moss which looked very fresh suggested that it may have been put there this year, even though it would be early for tits to start nesting.
A tit nest made in part with man-made fibres – probably from tennis balls
One of the striking features which we always find in tit nests is the use of man-made materials – probably the covering of green, yellow or orange tennis balls – to make the nest.
Black “witches butter” fungus and hairy curtain crust fungus on a tree stump
A propos of nothing we found these excellent examples of fungi this afternoon.
Time for a cup of tea!
We finished work at 4.35 as it was getting too dark to see.
In summary, during today’s survey we found that all the tit boxes were used. The nesting material in some tit boxes was dry, but in some it was very wet indeed – perhaps not surprising in view of the recent months of seemingly relentless heavy rain. Fortunately, today we spruced up twenty one nest boxes for this year’s broods.
Several of the nests contained droppings, indicating that the nest box had been used for roosting, as nesting birds do not defecate in the nest and clean out droppings from chicks.
Thank you to everyone who helped with today’s workparty!
To read more, have a look at tomorrow’s blog entry for day two of our annual nest box survey and clean.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various jobs, and we also put on educational events. We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to make new friends and enjoy getting out in the woods.
In the recent storms. a large number of trees in Adel Woods seem to have fallen over, or lost a branch. This one had fallen across the entrance to the path near Old Leo’s which leads up into Alwoodley Plantation – the path where we usually begin our annual nest box survey, due to start tomorrow. So a quick trip out to clear the fallen timber.
While there, I came across this spectacular fungus – which was very wobbly when the branch was moved. An email to Steve Joul revealed that it is Yellow Brain, latin name tremella mesenterica. Tremella is latin for wobbly jelly, and mesenteric means middle intestine. It feeds on another fungus, peniophora, that causes the branch to be rotten.
Further up the path there were further obstacles – a fallen branch and holly growing across the path. There were also cleared to allow Steve to carry his ladder up the path!
Friends of Adel Woods 