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Thursday, 18th March 2021: a new orchard in Adel Woods!

Posted on March 18, 2021 | 2 comments

Steve Joul spent today planting ten sapling fruit trees in the disused rugby field to the north of Crag Lane. If you can’t see them very clearly in the photograph, it is because they are only about a metre and a half in height and they are planted well apart so that they have space to develop fully.

The fruit trees are as follows:

two Cox’s Orange Pippin apple trees
four James Grieve apple trees
one Belle Boskoop apple tree
one Egremont Russet apple tree
two Conference pear trees.

They are grafted onto M25 root stock which means that they needed to be planted eight metres apart as, with tender loving care, they have the potential to grow into magnificent trees. The tender loving care will involve ensuring that they get adequate water during the Summer until their root systems have recovered from being uprooted and replanted.

The planting of the trees is part of Leeds City Council’s Woodland Creation Scheme. In 2019 the Council declared a climate emergency and set a target to become carbon neutral by 2030, part of which is to be achieved by the planting of trees.

The Council is also a member of the White Rose Forest, a community forest for North and West Yorkshire. The White Forest strategy for Leeds has set a target of increasing tree cover from 17% to 33% by 2050 and is intended to ensure that no household in Leeds is further than 500 metres from wooded spaces.

These ambitious plans involve planting 5.8 million trees on Leeds City Council land by 2045. Each year from 2020 to 2045, fifty hectares of parks and green spaces will be identified and planted up with 4,500 saplings per hectare, a planting target of 225,000 trees each year, to create an additional 1,250 hectares of new woodland per year throughout the city on Council owned land.

The benefits of planting trees are many:

they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and provide oxygen – crucial in reducing the effects of greenhouse gas emissions

they act as air filters, capturing harmful pollutants by trapping them on their leaves and bark

trees and woodlands are important habitats for wildlife

mature trees provide shade and reduce urban temperatures

trees prevent flooding by keeping soil in place and soaking up water

Woodlands provide a place to connect with nature, helping people to relax and unwind, which benefits both mental and physical health

The planting of fruit trees in Adel Woods was at the request of one of our local councillors. Here is a little more information about each of the tree species – obtained from https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk (save for Belle de Boskoop) :

Cox’s Orange Pippins

Considered by many to be the finest of all apples, primarily a variety for eating fresh, but also excellent for juice, cider and baking.

James Grieve

Raised in Scotland at the end of the 19th century, this is a mid-season variety which is picked in early-mid September. It is a very juicy apple grown for eating and cooking. It is an excellent pollinator for many other apple varieties.

Belle de Boskoop (information from Wikipedia)

This is an apple cultivar which originated in Boskoop, Netherlands, where it began as a chance seedling in 1856. It is firm, tart and fragrant and can contain more than four times the vitamin C of Granny Smiths or Golden Delicious.

Egremont Russet

A classic English russet apple from the Victorian era, popular with discerning apple lovers who appreciate its unique flavour and appearance. It works well in savoury salads and is good for juicing.

Conference Pear

The most widely-grown pear variety in the UK. It crops heavily and reliably and has an excellent flavour.

If your mouth is now watering, have a look at the orange pippin trees website.

Planting fruit trees in Adel Woods 18 March 2021 — Planting fruit trees in Adel Woods, 18 March 2021

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2nd and 3rd March 2021: the new interpretation panels in Adel Woods

Posted on March 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Installing the interpretation panel by the side of the path down to the Slabbering Baby

As part of the Wilderness on Your Doorstep project in the Meanwood Valley, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Adel Woods was allocated three interpretation panels to be sited by the path into the woods from Buckstone Road, on Adel Moor and on Crag Lane near Adel Crag.

After a long delay due to covid 19, they have at last been installed by David Preston and Louise and Emma of the Parks and Countryside ranger team.

On Tuesday, 2nd March, they installed the panel on the path from Buckstone Road(see pictures above) and the panel on Adel Moor (see pictures below).

Installing the interpretation panel on Adel Moor.

They installed the final panel on Crag Lane on Wednesday 3rd March.

The interpretation panel on Crag Lane, near Adel Crag.

They look great! So thank you to everyone involved in applying for the grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, to Dan Malster who organised the design of the panels, to Steve Joul who assisted in clearing the locations for them, and to David, Louise and Emma who installed them – and of course to everyone else who played a part in the long journey from imagining their existence to their installation.

I should say that the lottery funding also covered the cost of installing an interpretation board at Adel Whin on Eccup Lane. Adel Whin isn’t part of the area looked after by FOAW but here is a picture of David installing the panel.

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Wednesday, 24th February 2021: improvements to the Meanwood Valley Trail at the Slabbering Baby.

Posted on February 24, 2021 | Leave a comment

At the end of February, Leeds City Council started work to improve the path in the area of the Slabbering Baby. There has been a longstanding problem because a large amount of the spring water from the moor no longer flows into the Slabbering Baby but emerges about 10 metres away – onto the path leading up to Buckstone Road. The result is that the path and the Meanwood Valley Trail have frequently been covered in very deep mud.

Over the years, FOAW and Steve Joul and his volunteer team have tried to improve the area by scraping off mud, adding hardcore and doing our best to create a channel across the Meanwood Valley Trail so that water can flow away into the undergrowth on the lower side of the trail. However, it has been difficult because the path surface below the mud is very hard – and the mud returns very quickly!

At the instigation of Cllr Buckley, the Parks and Countryside Department investigated the cause of the problem and have laid new drainage pipes to take the surface water away. The area is already looking a lot better.

The area of brown earth shows where new pipes have been laid to take away the surface water.

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Thursday, 11th February 2021: Feeling stressed? Take a walk on the wildside….or in the garden or Adel Woods!

Posted on February 11, 2021 | Leave a comment

A few days ago, after several hours of Zoom calls, I felt jaded and couldn’t face more time at the computer and so I decided to go and find something to do in the garden.

To my amazement, after about a minute of being outside, I found my feelings of being weighed down lifted completely and I felt refreshed and energised – and I enjoyed pottering about in the garden for the next hour or so.

I am not the first to discover that just being outside in the natural world can improve our wellbeing. In fact, numerous studies have found that spending time out in green space brings many health benefits.

You may even have heard of “Forest Bathing”, a practice which began in Japan in the 1980s, and which is becoming popular in the UK. In this practice – in which you remain fully clothed by the way! – you spend time enjoying the woods with all your senses. The aim is twofold – to offer an antidote to stress and to inspire people to connect with and protect our forests.

Japanese researchers have found that forest bathing can:

reduce blood pressure
reduce stress
improve concentration and memory
boost the immune system
increase anti-cancer protein production
Lower blood-sugar levels
lift depression

In 2020 a review of current literature concluded that forest therapy plays an important role in preventive medicine and stress management for all ages.

As my own recent experience shows, even a short time out in nature can have a powerful effect on our wellbeing and a number of factors seem to make time spent in the garden, the park or the woods so beneficial:

natural light not only helps set your body clock and improve sleep, but is also believed to increase the production of serotonin which helps the digestive system, sleep and mood;
when we engage in gentle physical exercise endorphins are released into the bloodstream, improving wellbeing;

many plant species produce compounds and oils called phytoncides to fight infection from viruses and bacteria, and studies show that inhalation of phytoncides has beneficial effects on our immune, endocrine, circulatory and nervous systems;

soil, compost and leaf mold contain mycobacterium vaccae, and proteins from the cell walls of this bacterium trigger the further release of serotonin in our brains (so weeding is good for you!);

getting out in nature can prompt us to experience awe – a state of wonder coupled with a sense of being small in the presence of something bigger than ourselves, which has been shown to have many psychological and physiological benefits;
if there is a pond or stream in the vicinity it is even better: the sound of water has been shown to reduce production of the stress hormone cortisol, and MRI scans have shown that when people are shown videos of water their brain activity moves from flight or fight to relaxation.

So if you are stressed “take a walk on the wild side” and enjoy some mindful time out in your local garden, your local park or even Adel Woods. Even better make it part of your daily routine to enjoy some ecotherapy!

Even better, when we are once more out of lockdown, come and join Friends of Adel Woods in looking after our local greenspace.

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30th January 2021: Ring Necked Parakeets in Leeds

Posted on January 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

Ring Necked Parakeets have been in the news recently – which coincides with Steve Joul sending me reports and film of sightings in Roundhay Park.

Ring Necked Parakeets (psittacula krameri), also known as Rose Ringed Parakeets, are natives of Africa and southern Asia. They have become naturalised in the UK, probably because pets were released or escaped into the wild in the 1970’s.

At first, they established colonies in the southeast England, in particular Surrey, Kent and Sussex, but they have slowly been spreading northwards and have even been spotted as far north as Edinburgh and Glasgow.

You are probably wondering where you can see these exotic birds in Roundhay Park and Steve tells me that there is a roost outside the Lakeside Cafe. He saw 22 birds there on the 4th January and they leave the roost at dawn and return at dusk.

Here is a film which he took at 7.45 am on the 1st December.

They are often seen in flocks and, nationally, it is estimated that there are now 170,000 in the UK.

The reason that Ring Necked Parakeets have been in the news is that they have become so numerous in the London area that some people are calling for a cull as they are an invasive species and they are allegedly causing problems for farmers and native species.

From an ecological perspective, they nest in holes in trees and so there is a fear that they compete with tits, starlings and nuthatches. The RSPB and the BTO are not calling for a cull at the moment because there is insufficient evidence that they are a problem.

Their diet is nuts, seeds, berries and fruits – though they will apparently eat bacon off garden bird tables – so farmers fear that they could cause a lot of damage to crops.

Here is a recording of Chris Packham talking about Ring Necked Parakeets on Broadcasting House on Radio 4 on the 24th January 2021.

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Sunday, 13th December 2020: Steve Joul, five Friends and one dog went to widen a meadow!

Posted on December 13, 2020 | 1 comment

The orchid meadow, Adel Woods: 13th December 2020

Our last Friends of Adel Woods event of the year – and despite covid 19, we have managed to carry out ten tasks this year.

The weather did not look promising: at 9.30 am it was bucketing down with rain. But over the phone, Steve Joul, who was sitting in his van in Old Leo’s carpark, said: “You never know, it might clear up and be a lovely morning!”

Despite my scepticism, Steve was right! By 10 am it had stopped raining and five Friends turned up to help him clear saplings from the edge of the orchid meadow or, as Steve calls it, the cricket meadow.

We cannot say it was lovely day – it was grey and overcast and damp all morning – but the rain held off till noon and it was warm enough, we enjoyed each other’s company, and we achieved a lot.

The orchid meadow was once part of Crag Farm, whose farmhouse once stood near Adel Crag. Over the years, the meadow was being invaded by trees, bracken and himalayan balsam until our treasurer discovered a few years ago that it was populated with lovely common spotted orchids. Since then we have done a lot of work to ensure that the orchids are not out-competed by the invading plants. This work has paid off – see our entry for the 24th June 2020 – which, by the way, is an antidote to the overcast scenes in this post.

Our work today was continuing our previous work and was aimed at pushing the northern boundary of the meadow back by cutting down the small trees on the edge of the meadow and clearing them away.

Tackling a particularly feisty hawthorn bush: the Orchid Meadow, Adel Woods: 13th December 220

The morning was enhanced by the presence of Judith’s dog, Flash, who had a fine time training us all up to give him a full morning’s entertainment of chasing his ball. Hopefully he had a relaxing afternoon snoozing and dreaming of the orchid meadow.

We all had a really enjoyable morning and achieved a huge amount in the time available.

If you have been, thank you for reading this. In January, we hope to be out in the woods again, surveying and cleaning the nest boxes.

The Friends of Adel Woods wish you a Happy Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2021.

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27th November 2020: a Murmuration of Starlings at Fairburn Ings

Posted on November 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

On 27th November 2020, Steve Joul went to see the murmuration of starlings at Fairburn Ings and here is his film and a couple of his photos.

If you wonder what a murmuration of starlings is, the RSPB website describes one as “a mass aerial stunt – thousands of birds all swooping and diving in unison. It’s completely breathtaking to witness.”

The murmuration of starlings on 27th November 2020, filmed by Steve Joul

When I first moved to Leeds in the early 1980’s, I saw murmurations over Leeds city centre many times as dusk fell and they were an awe-inspiring sight. Unfortunately, in about the mid-80’s Leeds City Council decided that the starlings caused too much damage to buildings like the Town Hall and put in place netting and other measures to move the starlings on – if you look at the Town Hall you will see the netting. In a way, I can understand, having left my car in Park Square for an hour one evening in 1983: when I returned, the car was covered from top to bottom in foul smelling goo deposited by the starlings – and it was very hard to remove! However, I have always felt that in losing the starlings from Leeds City centre we lost something special.

The starlings form a murmuration as they gather over their roosting site. It is believed that they do it because grouping together offers safety in numbers – as predators like peregrine falcons find it difficult to target one bird in the middle of such a large number. Starlings gather to keep warm over night and, according to the RSPB website, to exchange information, such as about good feeding areas (which if true is amazing!).

Steve commented on his trip to Fairburn Ings: “The evening far exceeded my expectations: the development of the flock, the dramatic drops into the reeds, the sounds, the changing evening colours, the lovely weather.”

How fantastic! If you get the chance to see a murmuration, I strongly recommend that you take it! This is a murmuration which Barbara filmed in Skipton in February 2019.

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Steve Joul’s peregrinations and observations: 31st October 2020.

Posted on October 31, 2020 | Leave a comment

Steve Joul has been sending me photos of interesting things he has seen over the last month, and I thought I would share some of them. Mother Nature is always presenting us with something beautiful or awesome to see!

These are pictures taken by Steve at Killingbeck Fields while his wife was doing the shopping in Asda. Click on the pictures to get a better view.

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Sunday, 11th October 2020: Adel Pond

Posted on October 14, 2020 | 1 comment

With the country anxious about covid 19, and the threat of further lockdown restrictions being imposed in Leeds as from tomorrow, it was unclear how many Friends would take part in today’s event.

In the event, four of us met up with Steve Joul in Buckstone Road at 10 am, on quite a pleasant morning.

Judith, our intrepid treasurer, had set her heart on cleaning out the bowl of the Slabbering Baby which was full of stones and rather unpleasant mud.

The rest of us made our way to Mill Fall Pond, or Adel Pond as it is also known.

The pond was constructed many years ago to provide water for a Flax Mill which used to operate from this site. Steve Joul and volunteers rescued it from becoming dry land about twenty five years ago and each year Friends of Adel Woods spend a morning in October clearing out the stones and logs – which seem to be thrown into the pond by passersby throughout the year – and the silt which has been washed into the pond by the ditches which feed it.

Steve and your correspondent got togged up in waders and made our way cautiously into the pond – cautiously, because you don’t want to trip on an underwater obstacle, step into a deep chasm or disturb the monsters of the deep!

As usual we found plenty of very large logs and stones and removed them before embarking on the task of removing buckets of silt. Usually we have quite a large team, but today we started with two of us in the pond filling the buckets and two of us transporting the buckets of mud away for tipping down the nearby bank.

Before and after: if viewing online, move the slider to see the before and after images.

After about an hour, David set off to clear one of the ditches feeding the pond. Last year we cleared the ditch and inserted a pipe under the bridge leading down from the Meanwood Valley Trail but we were surprised to find a fortnight ago that the pipe was no longer visible as mud now covered it and completely blocked the space under the bridge. David came armed with his drainage rods as well as a couple of spades specifically to rectify the situation.

Mill Fall Pond, Adel Woods, 11 October 2020 — A view down the Meanwood Valley Trail towards Adel Pond

An hour’s hard work and the ditch was as good as new!

Adel Pond, Mill Fall Pond, Adel Woods 11 October 2020 — Adel Pond

We finished work at about 12.20 and all that remained was to clean the waders and tools in Nanny Beck before returning home for a well-earned Sunday lunch!

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Sunday, 27th September 2020: clearing spaces for the new interpretation panels.

Posted on September 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

FOAW’s return to active service seemed in jeopardy when Leeds was put on lockdown on Friday due to rapidly increasing Covid-19 infections. It looked as if today’s event would have to be postponed. However, there rules make an exception for voluntary activities and a message was received yesterday morning that we could go ahead.

We met at the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods on Buckstone Road at 10 am and we had a brilliant turn out of six – in addition to Steve Joul. The weather was chilly, but it was a pleasant day.

We had three tasks this morning: litterpicking, clearing spaces for our new interpretation panels and general path clearing. Unusually, none of our volunteers opted for litterpicking and so we all set off to our first task: clearing a space for the interpretation panel on the path down to the Slabbering Baby. Of course, we took a couple of litterpickers and bags with us and collected rubbish on our way.

The interpretation panels are a final stage of the Meanwood Valley Project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund: see our blog post for 11 June 2020.

On the way down to the location of this panel we saw that the Alder trees and the nettles by the path had very many blue beetles on them. Steve was of the view that they were alder leaf beetles in view of their location. However, it is only possible to identify some beetles accurately under magnification.

Clearing the space for the interpretation panel was a bigger job than anticipated and entailed cutting back holly, removing a number of small trees to lighten the location up, and marking the site for the panel with non-toxic spray. Unfortunately, when Steve shook the spray can, the orange paint started to shoot out of a puncture in the side, giving Steve some very stylish and modern flashes to his trousers!

From there we made our way up to the moor to clear and mark the space for our interpretation panel there. This was a much easier task, merely requiring the removal of brambles, and marking the location with another can of spray paint which Steve had fortunately brought with him. As the gentlemen volunteers helped Steve with this, the lady volunteers set off to clear holly and brambles from one of the paths down from the moor to the Slabbering Baby.

Adel Moor 27 September 2020 — The proposed site of the interpretation panel on Adel Moor

The path in question was one FOAW cleared a few years ago but it had become very overgrown. We spent about 30 minutes cutting back brambles and removing saplings.

Path clearing. Click on the photos to compare before and after

By the time we had completed this task it was 11.40 and Jude and Steph set off home. The remaining five set off up the Meanwood Valley Trail to Adel Crag, the site of the final interpretation panel. Fortunately, this required no more than agreeing the location and spraying it with paint.

Adel Woods, location of interpretation panel — The location of the interpretation panel for Adel Crag

Once we had completed this, we all set off home. On our way back to Buckstone Road, we unblocked the drainage pipe we put in Crag Lane in and had a look at the patch of Japanese knotweed which we have been trying to eradicate over the last 10 years. We found two or three shoots, but, fortunately, this is only a tiny fraction of the colony that was there a few years ago.

Crag Lane, Adel Woods, 27 September 2020 — Cleared drainage pipe, Crag Lane, Adel Woods: 27 September 2020

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