Friends of Adel Woods

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.” 

Today was a second go at working on Adel Bog, after we were rained off last Sunday.

As with last Sunday, six of us turned up today despite reasonably heavy rain and a dire forecast of rain all day. The difference was that today, we all agreed that we would go for it.

In the last two or three years, we have left Adel Bog to itself while we have concentrated on Adel Moor – and there has been a lot of incursion of brambles and saplings in that time. The area to the right of the picture above was all clear a few years ago.

Sure enough, it rained all morning, but the rain is manna from heaven for the bog which has been rather dry over the last couple of years. There were plenty of pools of water to be seen today.

And there were plenty of beautiful plants to be seen – like Bog Asphodel and Scabious.

Our main objective today was to clear brambles – which were extremely prolific and tangled – but we worked through heavy rain until midday and managed to clear large areas, though there is still a great deal to do.

The area where our Friends are standing was covered in brambles at the start of the morning.

Likewise, the area where we are standing and the area behind was all brambles and saplings two hours earlier!

After several days of very wet weather, the BBC weather team came through and gave us a really nice morning to work on Adel Moor – it was a bit touch and go, though: beautiful sunshine at about 8 and heavy rain at about 9 am.

We had a great turn out of 9 friends and continued with our program of clearing bracken, saplings, and brambles from the moor. As you can see from the picture above, the heather is looking fantastic and definitely inspires a feeling of joy in the heart!

The work which FOAW have carried out over the last 10 years – and the work carried out by many other volunteers – is definitely paying off. It was also gratifying to find that beneath many of the bracken plants there were young heather seedlings coming up.