Friends of Adel Woods

A very pleasant morning – still cool, but very mild.  So much so that some of us had a drink sitting outside Old Leo’s bar after our labours.

Lots of birdsong in the woods – particularly from great tits.  A passerby told us that great spotted woodpeckers could be heard near the Stairfoot Lane carpark.

Today’s tasks were litter picking and path clearing.  We had a great team of litter pickers – Mary, Chris, Tina, Rob, Judith, Graham and Barbara who set off to various areas of the woods to clear litter – while eight of us set off as a group to clear paths.

The seven litter pickers did a great job – which also entailed clearing a lot of flytipping in Stairfoot Lane.

The path clearing team of eight started with the path, just past Old Leo’s clubhouse at right angles to Crag Lane. Having widened the southern stretch of this path by several feet, we worked our way along Crag Lane, widening two or three areas where holly was narrowing the pathway.

Thence to the picnic area, with the intention of working our way down the Meanwood Valley Trail.  However, when we reached the picnic area our attention was caught by the path heading westward, just by the picnic table: it looked as if it was overgrown and difficult to walk.  We set to enthusiastically and had soon cleared and widened the first 30 yards or so, removing a fallen tree trunk from the path, and many branches at high level in case horse riders use the path.  Beyond 30 yards the path was clear.

From there we returned to the picnic area and set off down the Meanwood Valley trail, cutting back holly and removing fallen timber for about one hundred yards.

At 12.05 pm we packed up our tools and returned to Old Leo’s car park – where five of us decided to sample the delights of the local hostelry.

All in all, a very enjoyable and satisfying two hours work!

Our first morning of litter picking and path clearing for a couple of months  – and  there was a lot of rubbish in the woods today.

There were nine of us t and we began with about 40 minutes of litter picking around Old Leo’s, along Crag Lane and down towards the cricket club.  We picked up many bags of rubbish and made a huge difference to the appearance of the woods.

Litter picking

Your correspondent could write much about the litter which we find in the woods.  One category which is particularly irksome comes from the habit of  some dog walkers to pick up dog poo in plastic bags but then to throw the bags into the undergrowth or hang them up on trees or bushes.  Presumably, they bag up the poo so that they can appear to be doing the right thing, and then dispose of the bag when they think that no one can see them.  If you are a dog walker and  have been doing this, please continue to bag up your dog’s poo, but please take it home and dispose of it properly.  The Friends of Adel Woods find it extremely yucky to have to pick up wet and slimy bags of poo.

A new kind of litter first appeared in January of this year:  lots of deflated balloons and small glass phials.  Apparently, these are the detritus from a new fashion of substance abuse – the inhaling of laughing gas.  When surveying the nest boxes earlier this month we found balloons and phials in the woods near the rugby clubhouse.  Today there were about 25 of the glass phials deposited in the car park.  Let us hope that this is a short-lived craze.

On a brighter note, we also found £1.15 which we have added to FOAW funds!

Path Clearing

Before …

Leaving Steph to continue litter picking, the rest of us set off to  the very top end of the woods to remove a tree which had fallen across the path and to cut back the encroaching holly.

Half an hour of hard work and the job was done.

…and after

We then walked back to the Stairfoot Lane carpark, and set off along the path which runs parallel to and below Crag Lane.  There a real whopper of a tree had come down.  After careful evaluation of the job we were able to saw it up and remove it from the path.

As we did this, Chris and Sylvia cut holly back from the path.

Before…

By now it was 12.10 pm and we set off back to Old Leo’s carpark but 50 yards along, we found another tree lying across our path.  We agreed to remove this and were able to cut it up and drag it into the undergrowth in about five minutes of focused work.

…and after

We all agreed that we had had a very productive and successful morning in the woods.

The weather throughout the morning was very pleasant.  To our surprise, a few flakes of icy snow began to fall as we got into our cars.

Say “Trees”!

Yesterday we cleaned and surveyed eighteen nest boxes.  Only thirteen left to do this morning!  Fortunately, the remaining ones were all in a straight line down the Meanwood Valley Trail between the Slabbering Baby and the Seven Arches, which makes them much easier to find.

Another perfect day for the task but a smaller team – Steve Joul and three assistants for the first hour and two assistants after that (as your correspondent had to leave for a funeral).

Of the thirteen nest boxes, one was a robin box which could not be found.  All the rest of the boxes (including a starling or treecreeper box) were used by tits.

In case you are wondering what a starling or treecreeper box is, here is a picture.  It is a lot deeper than a tit box and the entrance is on the side of the box, next to the tree trunk.   The tit nest is right at the bottom of the box and it is amazing to think of young great tits or blue tits climbing their way up to the exit when it is time for them to leave the nest.  Since this picture was taken, the nest box has been improved by the addition of a metal plate around the entrance and a plastic roof and back.

View of a tit nest

One of the tit boxes seems to have been used at least temporarily by a pair of nuthatches because the lid was plastered with mud.  However, the nest inside was a tit nest of moss, grass, fur and hair, rather than a nuthatch nest of wood chips.

All in all, another great morning’s work.

Thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s nest box cleaning and surveying, and thanks of course to Steve Joul for sharing all his amazing knowledge and skills.

For the eighth January running, FOAW joined Steve Joul in cleaning out and surveying the nest boxes in Adel Woods.

We had a great team of seven until lunchtime, when some of us had to leave for other duties.  In the afternoon, there was a team of three.  The weather was perfect – dry, mild and no wind.  Your correspondent even worked up a sweat in the afternoon!

As usual, pretty well all of the tit boxes were used last Spring, but none of the robin boxes were used.

The robin boxes have never been used by robins (we have had the odd tit nest) and so we probably ought to think about moving them.  Currently, they are all stationed in the middle of holly bushes about two or three feet off the ground.  So very difficult and prickly to find – at least for human beings.

A multicoloured tit nest!

Every year the survey is different and this year was no exception.  It is quite usual to find the odd unhatched egg in the nesting material, and we measure the eggs to see if the nest box was used by blue tits or the larger great tits.  This year, we found a number of nests containing the skeletons of chicks – in a couple as many as five or six.  This was unusual – we have probably found no more than a couple of skeletons in total in all the previous seven years of surveying nest boxes.

Measuring eggs found in a nest box

The number of skeletons found this year seems to suggest that there were some difficulties for tits during the breeding season – presumably bad weather which meant that there was insufficient food to feed all the young.

However, it was not a disastrous season.  Blue tits typically lay about 8 to 12 eggs but sometimes lay as many as 16! Great tits typically lay 7 to 9 eggs but may lay as many as 15.  So even where a number of the young died in the nest last season, the chances are that perhaps four or five young successfully grew up and left the nest.

This year we had one nuthatch nest in our tit boxes.  Nuthatch nests are very different from tit nests which are made of moss, fur, hair and grass.  The first suggestion that a nuthatch has nested in the box is that the lid is glued down, and all gaps in the woodwork are filled,  with mud.  When opened the nest is made of lots of little chips of wood – rather like a bowl of bran flakes!  It was pleasing to have a nuthatch nest – we didn’t have any last year, though we had two a couple of years ago.  Interestingly, the nuthatch nest was in the box by the bridge near Adel Pond – the very same tree where nuthatches nested previously.

A nuthatch nest in one of our woodcrete nest boxes – unfortunately, not a clear picture, but you can see where the nuthatches have plastered mud round the rim of the nest box.

We finished work as dusk began to fall at about 4 pm, by which time we had surveyed 18 nest boxes.

Fifty one years ago, my class teacher, Mrs Evans, told us that as you get older the years go by faster. She was right. It seems like two minutes since we were in the bar of Old Leo’s Rugby Club in December 2015, making our Christmas Garlands, and here we are again in December 2016 making another batch.

We had a good turn out of elves to help make our Garlands.  There was a rugby match going on as we wrestled with leylandii and exercised our creative and aesthetic faculties, and several of the rugby fans asked us to make them a garland  – which we did for a modest contribution to our funds.

Over the next few days, there were further requests for garlands and in the end contributions of £105 were made to FOAW funds, as against expenditure of about £30.

Thanks are due to Old Leo’s not only for letting us use their bar to make the garlands, but also for generously feeding Santa’s elves with quiche, sausage rolls, bacon sandwiches and tea and coffee.  Thank you Old Leo’s!

Everyone at Friends of Adel Woods hopes that you have enjoyed your Christmas break and wishes you all happiness for 2017.

Three happy Elves

A group of happy Friends of Adel Woods met this morning to get ready for next Sunday’s Christmas Garland event – dismantling and recycling garlands returned from last year, and making more circular bases so that on the day we can just get down to some artistic creativity!

Much happy conversation, creativity and enjoyment – especially of mince pies!

It was rather wet and cold first thing this morning, but fortunately, the weather brightened up by 10 am for FOAW’s task.

Despite the cold and wet (and despite a number of apologies for other reasons) we had a turn out of five keen friends.  Barbara litter picked, while the rest of us headed up to the northern most part of the woods to clear paths.

We started off at one of the paths leading down from Stairfoot Lane, removing nettles and brambles and, near the entrance from the road, cutting back some overhanging branches to make things easier for horse riders.

We then returned to the path leading at right angles from Crag Lane up towards the hospice woodland, adjacent to the rugby practice field.  There we cleared more nettles and brambles in addition to cutting back encroaching holly.

Two hours of hard work enabled us to make a significant improvement where we worked.

Say not the struggle naught availeth, the labour and the wounds are vain, the enemy faints not nor faileth and as things have been they remain.  Arthur Hugh Clough

Friends of Adel Woods first formed in July 2009, and every Autumn since then we have spent a morning working with Steve Joul on Adel Pond.

Our first foray into the pond was on the 15th November 2009 when the pond was badly silted up and choked with Reed Sweet Grass, a non-native plant species which tends to crowd out the native plants.  Here are a couple of photographs taken that day:

Adel Pond, 15 November 2009

We can just see a few flag irises at the end of the wheelbarrow handle.  The rest of the vegetation in the pond is almost all reed sweet grass.

Adel Pond, 15 November 2009 – most of the vegetation is reed sweet grass

That first year, we removed most of the reed sweet grass, and each year since we have helped Steve manage the pond, digging out large amounts of silt which washes in from the surrounding woods, and an amazing number of sticks and logs which seem to appear out of nowhere each year.

We had a good turn out of Friends today and enjoyed a successful if muddy morning of hard work – digging out silt, removing logs and cutting back some of the overhanging branches of trees.  Have a look at the photos taken today to see how the pond has improved.

The pond is an important habitat for palmate newts – as can be seen from our blog entry for the 5th May 2012 (click on the link) The newts headlines at 7.30 am on Saturday 5 May 2012.

Photos from 23 October 2016

Adel Pond, 23 October 2016 – see the clump of flag irises to the right.

Rob clearing the stream which feeds the pond.

Adel Pond, 23 October 2016

A smiling team, happily anticipating lunch!

We had our third session of bracken bashing today, led by Steve Joul.  Your correspondent is unable to report because he was on holiday.

Here is a message from Steve in advance of the meet:

Just to clarify what I hope we can achieve, I intend to pull up bracken, put it into wheelbarrows and wheel it to our composting area. The more we get done the better for the future of Adel Moor.

Here’s a chant I just thought of that we can sing while we work.

“Here in Adel there’s not much moor,
So we’re pulling up the bracken so there’s not much more!”

Here is a report from our deputy bracken bashing correspondent:

We had about half a dozen turn up.
Steve wanted to remove the bracken that had been bashed in case it was smothering other plants.
We ended up moving wheelbarrow loads of previously bashed bracken to compost sites under the trees.
Also some bracken was pulled up where it was growing amongst some heather.
There were just two of us bashing bracken.

Unfortunately, the saplings appear to be thriving, so we should remove these when we can.

Whether any singing took place is not recorded.  Nor are there photographs of the events in question.

Following our successful session of bracken bashing on the 14th August, we decided to

Andrew, in a testosterone fuelled moment

have another session to carry on the good work.

We had another good morning.  Unfortunately, your correspondent seems to have forgotten to take his camera and take any pictures, so we are having to rely on archive pictures.  The action packed photograph of Andrew was taken on the 14th August – he wasn’t there on the 27th.  However, the photograph contains a poetic truth!

The same three methods of “bashing” were used. David S had modified his bracken bashing machine by the addition of pieces of metal to act as blades.  These were a good idea, but the effectiveness of the machine was probably reduced because we put fewer mattocks on the pallet to provide weight.  Nevertheless, the machine provided much fun to its operators.

Who is that good looking man, front left?