Friends of Adel Woods

When we surveyed the nest boxes on 19th January, we found that the nest box by the bridge over Nanny Beck near Adel Pond was missing. The nail on which it hung was still there, but there was no trace of the wood crete nest box.

This next box site is a special one because nuthatches have nested there several times in the last ten years.

Steve mentioned that we could replace the missing box with one of our spare wooden boxes (each year we take away the nest boxes which are beyond repair and replace them with a refurbished one). However, we forgot to do it. Actually, a more honest reason in my case was that I was desperate for my lunch and deliberately did not remind Steve that we needed to put one more nest box up.

Yesterday, it was a beautiful day and David agreed to help me and we returned to Nanny Beck and put up our wooden nest box.

It should be numbered 38, but it is identified by the name “Louisa D” painted on the side – this being the name of a young lady who helped to make some nest boxes 22 January 2011. This particular nest box used to hang in a tree to the left of the Slabbering Baby.

A stunning morning – it was tempting to say “Spring morning” because it was such a lovely day and there were lots of birds singing and calling.

Five of us gathered to help Steve Joul complete the surveying and cleaning of the FOAW nest boxes.

…And just when you think that you have seen it all after nine years of surveying nest boxes, you discover something new! – but more of that later.

Four of us met in Buckstone Road and drove the equipment down to the Slabbering Baby, and then two more Friends arrived as we were unloading our vehicles. We started by surveying the nest box by the Slabbering Baby, and then headed up the Meanwood Valley Trail in the direction of Stairfoot Lane to survey the nest boxes we did not manage to reach last week.

We then headed back to the Slabbering Baby and down the Meanwood Valley Trail to the Seven Arches.

As in previous years, most of the nest boxes were utilised last year. We found two nuthatch nests this morning – one in a wooden box, and one in one of our wood crete boxes. Interestingly, whereas the nuthatches had plastered up all the gaps in the wooden box, they had not bothered to do this with the wood crete box. With the nuthatch nest which we found last week, that makes three nuthatch nests last breeding season. We could hear nuthatches calling today.

The nest boxes had the usual range of critters in them: spiders, woodlice, the odd slug and ladybird, and lots of moth larvae.

We had one rather gothic find in we put up a box which was intended to be for tree creepers, but whose entrance hole is far too big. Inside this box we found the mummified remains of a squirrel!

However, the find of the day was when we opened a tit box to find a beautiful specimen of a noctule bat hibernating there. The bat was wedged up against the lid of the box and we immediately closed the nest box as carefully as possible. This was the first time that we have found a bat in a nest box in nine years of surveying them.

The noctule is the UK’s largest bat – it is 3.7 to 4.8 cm long and has a wingspan of 32-40 cm (that is up to 1’4″ in old money!). It roosts in trees and can be seen flying over the canopy in search of insect prey from April to October.

We completed our survey of the nest boxes at about 2.30 pm. Tired and hungry, but exhilarated by a fantastic day, we retired for our lunch!

Torrential rain at 11 pm last night, so it was a very pleasant surprise this morning to draw the curtains at 7.45 am and see a clear blue sky and a light frost.

A good turn out of seven Friends, meeting in the Stairfoot Lane carpark, with two more joining a little later.

Two of us set off litter picking and picked up four bags of rubbish.

The rest of us set off to clear accumulated leaf litter and molehills from the steps leading from the Stairfoot Lane carpark down to the stream. The steps, which were put in nine years ago, were in danger of reverting to a steep muddy bank!

This was a much bigger job than anticipated and took us all morning.

However, we got there in the end, and the steps are once more in good nick. No moles were seen or harmed in the course of our activities.

The sun was out all morning and it was a beautiful day to work in the woods. Another beautiful day is forecast for tomorrow when we will be completing our surveying and cleaning of the nest boxes. There was a lot of bird song this morning, and so the blue tits, great tits and other birds seem to be gearing up for this year’s breeding season.

The days are getting imperceptibly longer, the birds are active and there is an aura of Spring in the air: so it must be time to survey and clean the nest boxes in Adel Woods with Steve Joul! It’s a job which takes a day and a half and we did the first day today. We are completing the survey on Sunday the 19th January.

Today it was rather windy out in the open, and the forecast was for rain most of the day, but fortunately it stayed mild and dry all day and, once we were in the woods, we were hardly aware of the wind. We had an excellent turn out of 12 volunteers in the morning, and 7 in the afternoon.

We began by heading up into Alwoodley Plantation past the bat boxes and surveying the nest boxes there, and then making our way westwards to the path which leads south back to Crag Lane and Old Leo’s clubhouse. We then made our way along Crag Lane and surveyed a couple of the nest boxes on Crag Lane before adjourning for lunch at about 1.30 pm.

We resumed at 2.30 with a slightly different team, surveying the rest of the nest boxes along Crag Lane and in the picnic area, and then heading down the Meanwood Valley Trail.

As usual, nearly all of the tit boxes were used. One thing that was unusual was that two of the nest boxes had a complete clutch of unhatched eggs. This was also the case in one of the nest boxes in our garden. Whether this is due to problems with the food supply or the mother coming to an unfortunate end, we shall never know.

As usual, there plenty of moth larvae in the tit boxes. They eat into the wood and convert it into a protective material in which they live. A number of the nest boxes had impressive looking spiders which folded their legs up like Transformers and looked like squashed raisins!

None of the robin boxes surveyed today were used at all. None have ever been used by a robin in the last 10 years, though sometimes they have been used by blue tits or great tits. Robin boxes differ from tit boxes: they are the same size, but instead of having a small round hole, they have a large rectangular opening taking up half of the front of the box. We have placed them in the middle of holly bushes about two or three feet above the ground. It looks as if we are doing something wrong, but robins are doing very well in Alwoodley, so perhaps they don’t need our boxes!

Having surveyed the boxes in the picnic area, we made our way down the Meanwood Valley Trail and surveyed three or four nest boxes until it was becoming too dark to continue.

Our last task of the day was to remove a large birch which had fallen across the Meanwood Valley Trail. We had brought saws to provide for just this eventuality.

Overall a very enjoyable and successful day. We are completing the cleaning and surveying of the nest boxes on Sunday the 19th January between 10 am and 1 pm. Please come along and join us!

Yesterday the rain was torrential. But the weather forecast for today was for a fine morning. It was therefore a bit disappointing, when the alarm went off at 7.45 am and we looked out of the bedroom window to see heavy sleet. Your correspondent therefore decided to wait until after breakfast before loading the car up!

Surprisingly, by ten am the weather had brightened considerably, and eight Friends (including your correspondent) arrived for the work “party”. Two of us chose to litter pick and the rest of us to clear paths.

Our first path was the one that runs diagonally up from Crag Lane into Alwoodley Plantation.

From there we crossed the Plantation towards the Hospice Woodland.

Coming out of the Plantation, we came to a large waterlogged area and indulged our boyish enthusiasm for playing with mud and water to create a channel to allow the water to drain.

Having created a drainage channel, which allowed water to drain freely, we went up to the ridge on the way to the Hospice Woodland, and indulged our boyish enthusiasm to create another drainage channel!

We had a limited brief at the Hospice Woodland – to clear the brambles and bracken covering the daffodils which are already starting to emerge from the ground, and to clear some of the undergrowth around the trees.

By now it was 12 and we made our way back to the carpark – pausing only to admire our earlier handiwork and watch the water draining freely along our little canal.

This year, to celebrate ten years of working in Adel Woods, we have printed our very first annual calendar with photographs taken over the last ten years, matching the photographs to the month.

Today we collected a print run of 50 from the printers and we are very pleased with them.

We are delighted that we have already sold or received orders for 48. If you have not yet ordered a copy but would like one, it is not too late!

Amazing but true: it is now over 10 years since Friends of Adel Woods came into existence!

Tonight 58 supporters of Friends of Adel Woods filled the excellent Olive Branch, Alwoodley, for a celebratory meal. We were very fortunate to welcome two special guests – David Preston, the Meanwood Valley Heritage Ranger, who gave a talk on the Meanwood Valley project, and Steve Joul who led a very interesting quiz.

It was a great night. Here is just some of the excellent feedback:

“THANK YOU for a superb evening!” “Thank you so much for organising a fantastic night out, it was great!” “Fabulous evening last night. We really really enjoyed it. Excellent food, excellent company and excellent entertainment!” Thanks for organizing such a lovely evening… we enjoyed it all very much.” “A delightful evening.  No need to ask if everyone enjoyed themselves!” “I really enjoyed myself it was a superb evening.” 

The very first meeting to explore the idea of creating a “Friends” group took place on Sunday 28th June 2009 when 12 of us took a walk around the woods to see the lay of the land and get some ideas of what we could do to look after the woods. On 3 July 2009, we had a meeting in the bar of Alwoodley Community Association when we agreed to set up FOAW and 8 of us signed the constitution.

Our very first event took place on 19 July 2009 when, in two hours, 13 of us picked up 23 bags of rubbish as well as other detritus too big to bag.

Since then we have met about 14 mornings a year to pick up litter; clear and improve paths; make, put up and survey nest boxes; desilt the pond; improve Adel Bog; clear the Buck Stone; and remove saplings and bracken from Adel Moor.

We haven’t kept a tally of how many bags of rubbish we have removed, but it is probably about 600 by now.

In addition we have had many educational walks and talks with Steve Joul, a talk on red kites by Doug Simpson, and a talk on bats with Diane Gregory who also led a bat walk. We have also had a three visits to Dianne and Alan Yarker’s smallholding.

The activities – or work “parties” as we now call them – and the talks are important, but a third pillar of our activities is enjoying the experience and making new friends.

If you would like to make a positive contribution to improving the environment of Leeds and looking after Adel Woods, to get some exercise in the fresh air, and to make new friends, please come along to one of our meetings – or contact Friends of Adel Woods via the website.

“Brilliant, astonishing afternoon autumn walk with Steve the ranger. Found loads of items of natural history in Adel Woods.” 

A quote posted on our website by one of the intrepid group of explorers who braved the wet weather for a fungal foray with Steve Joul this afternoon.

We met in Old Leo’s carpark at 2.30, and, after a brief introduction, Steve led us along Crag Lane to the remains of the large beech tree that fell on the cottage garage about six years ago. A six foot piece of trunk is now host to many species of fungi.

From there, we walked through the woods to the recreation ground to see what we could find there.

We then made our way to the track down to the cricket pavilion, looking for wax caps on the cricket field.

Passing behind the cricket pavilion, we walked down the path to the Slabbering Baby, encountering on our way some interesting specimens.

Reaching the Meanwood Valley Trail at the bottom of the path, we turned right and made our way up the steps to the pond, where we found yet more interesting specimens.

A very interesting and enjoyable afternoon.

Thanks Steve!

“Brilliant, astonishing afternoon autumn walk with Steve the ranger. Found loads of items of natural history in Adel Woods.”