Friends of Adel Woods

Morning

Our first event in the field since 15th March! It was a lovely day and we had a really good turn out.

We met in Old Leo’s car park. It was a slow start, but eventually there were twelve of us including Steve Joul and Peter, one of his volunteers.

After a careful covid 19 briefing, six of our volunteers set off litterpicking and had a very successful morning, particularly around Adel Crag where there was a lot of broken glass.

The remaining six of us walked down to the orchid meadow – which is located to the west of the cricket pavilion – equipped with rakes, pitch forks, tarpaulins, a strimmer and (some of us) lunch.

Steve and an assistant mowed the meadow on the 2nd September. Our job today was to rake up the mowings and transport them to composting bays at each end of the meadow, using tarpaulins as sleds.

By lunch at 12 noon, we had cleared perhaps a quarter of the meadow and it looked as if we would not complete the job today.

Afternoon

We began work again at 1.15 pm – now down to a team of five.

There were lots of brambles around the edge of the meadow, and a visitor came to collect blackberries!

And we had a guest appearance from our treasurer and Flash who both came to encourage us.

It was a lovely afternoon. From a wildlife point of view, the highlight was when Peter found a Woolly Bear! No – not a ferocious mammal, but the caterpillar of a tiger moth!

Having inspected the Woolly Bear, we got back to work and much to your correspondent’s suprise, we completed the job by 3 pm!

Your correspondent has never seen a yellowhammer – and quite frankly had no idea what one looked like – but was aware that the call is said to sound like “A little bit of bread and no (or some) cheese”. He was therefore really taken with two pictures of yellowhammers taken by, Diana, one of our volunteers, near her allotment on Eccup Moor Road. I think that you will agree that he or she is a very striking bird.

Here is what Diana says: “I saw it in the hedge on Eccup Moor Road. I am not sure what time of day, but we hear them down the plot singing away most afternoons into the evening. Yellow Hammers have a distinctive call described as sounding like a little bit of bread and some cheeeeese’ It has the rhythm of this phrase with a long whistling note at the end for the word cheese. We recognise their singing then see a flash of yellow of their bright heads speeding by.”

If you would like to hear their distinctive song, click here to hear the song of the yellowhammer – on the website of british-birdsongs.uk – which is a great resource for learning birdsongs.

If you would like to find out more about yellowhammers, here is the link to the RSPB page.

And why not enjoy some music too! Mr Blue Sky

One of our Friends has sent me these two videos of badgers caught on CCTV. They are not in Adel Woods! Click on the links to set the videos going.

Daylight.

Night time.

One of our younger Friends, Sophie, spotted this newt in Adel Pond. She and her Dad saw lots – about eight in an area two metres by two metres.

There are three native species of newt in the UK: smooth or common newt; palmate newt; and great crested newt. The newts spotted by Chloe and her Dad were either smooth newts or palmate newts.

Newts spend much of the year on dry land and only take to the water for the breeding period in the Spring and staying there till the Summer. In the rest of the year they can often be found under stones in the garden. A few years ago, I dismantled a wall in our garden and found a bundle of about twenty newts all huddled up in a ball.

Friends of Adel Woods dredge silt from Adel Pond each Autumn and we had successful “newt safaris” with Steve Joul in May 2012 and May 2013 – you can find reports in our blog.