A beautiful morning and eleven Friends met at 10 am at the Slabbering Baby entrance to Adel Woods. We had two tasks for the day: litter picking, and working on Adel Moor.
Litterpicking
Two of our team chose to pick up litter.
They made their way up Buckstone Road, across the Village Green, and along Crag Lane to Adel Crag where they found and cleared up bags of litter which had been left to the right of the Crag. Together they filled one and a half purple bags.
One of our team picked up two lots of unbagged dog poo (a first for her) using the dog poo bags donated by Fetch for our last event. Despite this unpleasant job, her verdict was:
“A lovely morning and we both enjoyed our litter pick and a picturesque walk back to the cars.”
Working on Adel Moor
Nine of us chose to work on Adel Moor. As can be seen from the photographs, the moor was looking wonderful in the sunshine. The light green areas in the photographs are areas of bracken. The brown-green areas are heather.
Friends of Adel Woods have been working on Adel Moor for fifteen years now – removing tree saplings, bracken and brambles. Today our focus was primarily on reducing the amount of bracken and removing saplings with our trusty tree popper.
One of our long-serving Friends about to tackle a patch of bracken.
The purpose of doing this is to preserve this special habitat within Leeds, and it was pleasing to find that as we cleared areas of bracken we revealed plenty of heather plants and seedlings. Other typical moorland or heathland plants found on Adel Moor are gorse and bilberries. The bilberries seemed to be doing particularly well this year.
Removing saplings with our tree popper – an uprooted sapling can be seen front left
Unfortunately, a small number of dog owners believe that the moor is a great place to let their dogs “do their business”. This is damaging to the moor for a number of reasons. The increase in nutrients in the soil discourages moorland plants while encouraging grass to grow. The damage is apparent in that the paths through the moor now have very wide grass verges. This is probably harming the population of native lizards: their habitat, the heathland, is being divided into small patches separated by wide stretches of grass. We did not see any lizards today but we have seen them previously when working on the moor.
We need to preserve the habitat for the lizards – and for its intrinsic beauty – and so yours truly sacrificed pleasure for duty and took on the task of gathering up deposits of doggy do do.
Two Friends at the end of our morning’s workA Friend adding to the pile of bracken removed during our morning’s work
“Adel Moor is a wonderful place to work!”
Happy Friends of Adel Woods!
Join Friends of Adel Woods!
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our activities and would be delighted if you would like to join us.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events such as bat walks, fungal forays and birdsong walks.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods, and make new friends.
If you would like to take part in our activities, keep an eye on our Home Page and come along to one of our work parties.
If you would like to join our email mailing list, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
We are just about to complete our sixteenth year since Friends of Adel Woods came into being, and the last twelve months have been successful with many work parties and educational walks and talks.
Work parties
Usually, our work parties comprises a team of litterpickers and another team carrying out a task such as path clearing.
In the last year we have had twelve mornings of litterpicking and picked up about fifty bags of rubbish – so hats off to our dedicated band of litterpickers! We haven’t kept a tally, but it seems likely that since Friends of Adel Woods was formed, we have picked up over eight hundred bags of rubbish – in addition to disposing of larger items such as tyres and beer barrels!
Some of the rubbish we have collected over the last year
As well as litterpicking we have completed fifteen and a half mornings on the following tasks:
one morning working on Adel Moor with David Preston removing bracken, brambles and saplings.
one morning clearing bracken from around the Buck Stone
three mornings mowing the orchid meadow
four mornings clearing paths and fallen trees
three mornings working on Adel Bog (1 with David Preston)
one morning dredging Adel Pond with David Preston
one and a half days of nest box cleaning and surveying with Steve Joul
one morning putting tree guards on the orchard in the practice rugby field
Working on the orchid meadow with David Preston
Educational events
Since the last AGM we have had six educational walks – five with Steve Joul, and one with Leeds City Council ranger, David Preston. They were all a great success.
A fungal foray with Steve Joul on 17th November 2024
Steve led a variety of walks:
30th June: exploring biodiversity – a joint event with Alwoodley 2030
20th July: a stream and pond safari
29 September: a fungal foray
17th November: a fungal foray
4th May this year, a birdsong walk
On 28th August David led a guided batwalk attended by twenty six adults and nine children.
A bat walk with David Preston on 28th August 2024
I know from speaking to people who attend, and the messages I get from participants after these events, that people really enjoy them.
The Friends of Adel Woods Blog
If you would like to know more about our activities, please have a look at our blog entries.
Grants
Putting tree guards on the orchard in bitterly cold driving rain
We have received two grants in the last year.
In February we received a grant from Alwoodley 2030 to purchase tree guards for the orchard in the practice rugby field as the trees were suffering damage from deer and rabbits.
This month the Leeds Together Fund awarded Friends of Adel Woods a grant to purchase three litterpickers and six bin bag hoops. The purpose of the grant was to put on a community event during May and on the 31st May we are having a community litterpick.
Improvements to the Stairfoot Lane Carpark and Crag Lane
The Stairfoot Lane carpark after improvements
In December Leeds City Council resurfaced the Stairfoot Lane carpark and created a separate fenced off path through the carpark for the route of the Meanwood Valley Trail to keep pedestrians away from vehicles. This was clearly a big improvement.
In February the council resurfaced Crag Lane from the Stairfoot Lane carpark to Old Leo’s rugby club. This involved scraping off the mud from the surface, laying hardcore and then creating the new surface. This end result is a great improvement to Crag Lane.
Crag Lane after resurfacing work
However, my particular reason to mention this is that one of our regular volunteers, Matthew, contacted me on the 9th February, before the work was completed. He was very concerned because he had noticed that the hardcore used was of poor quality – containing crushed bricks, concrete, white ceramics and plastic piping – which was completely unacceptable in a woodland area. I contacted our local councillors and David Preston and passed on Matthew’s concerns and the result was that the worst hardcore was scraped off, and replaced with better quality hardcore.
So thank you very much to Matthew.
Water Quality in our Local Streams
Possible pollution in Adel Beck
Pollution of our rivers is a hot topic at the moment and in the past it has been raised with me by members of Friends of Adel Woods. One of the problems about looking into this is having accurate information about whether the streams are polluted or not.
In October last year I met up with a PhD student at Leeds who is active in promoting citizen science projects relating to water quality of our local streams. On 10th October, I walked with her along Nanny Beck and Meanwood Beck to look for signs of pollution and in February I organised a meeting of members of Friends of Adel Woods who would like to get involved in a water sampling project. About fourteen people attended the meeting. I am organising a meeting to form two or three groups who will take responsibility for the sampling. While it makes sense for Friends of Adel Woods to help steer this project, I am hoping that this will become a separate self-sustaining project.
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust event
On the 19th November, three of our committee – Steve, Sue and myself – went to an event organised by Alwoodley 2030 when Yorkshire Wildlife Trust gave a talk on the state of nature in Yorkshire.
Thank yous
Working on Adel Bog
So as usual, I would like to thank our committee and volunteers for all the work they have done over the last year. FOAW would not exist without the committee and volunteers. And I am looking forward to another year of fun, laughter and friendship. New members are always welcome!
I would particularly like to thank Judith for all the work she has done as treasurer over the last 16 years, and Stephanie who was our secretary from 2009 until July of last year.
Steve Joul on a stream and pond safari
Thank you to Steve Joul for leading five educational events this year – and helping to raise funds for Friends of Adel Woods.
Thank you to David Preston for the work he has done with us the last year. David is changing jobs to join the Public Rights of Way team imminently, and so we may not work with him again.
Looking to the future
As I and the rest of the committee get older, I get more concerned about how to ensure that Friends of Adel Woods continues for years to come. This is something which we need to consider over the coming year. New volunteers are always welcome!
Roger Gilbert
Chair of Friends of Adel Woods
COME ALONG TO FRIENDS OF ADEL WOODS EVENTS!
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about our activities and would be delighted if you would like to join us.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events such as bat walks, fungal forays and birdsong walks.
We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods, and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, keep an eye on our Home Page and come along to one of our work parties.
If you would like to join our email mailing list, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Adel Moor on 9th June 2024 – two Friends of Adel Woods in the distance
Another lovely morning spent in Adel Woods, litter picking and working on Adel Moor with David Preston our local Parks and Countryside ranger.
We had one person litter picking today, and she gathered one and a half bags of rubbish.
Six of us worked on the moor with David, focusing on the bottom or western end.
We had a very successful morning on the moor, cutting back tree branches from around the edge of the moor to give the heather a chance to thrive, and removing saplings and seedlings – a job made much easier with the use of our own and the council’s tree poppers. For more information about the work we have been doing on Adel Moor, see our blog entry for Saturday 25th May.
David Preston with four happy Friends of Adel Woods
ABOUT FRIENDS OF ADEL WOODS
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events. We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, just come along to one of our work parties or get in touch by leaving a comment on this website.
Our next events
Our next work party will be on Saturday the 20th July when we will be litterpicking and clearing scrub from around the Buck Stone. Details of the meeting place will be given on the homepage of our website shortly and via our email mailing list shortly.
Our next educational event will be on Sunday the 21st July from 2 to 4 pm, when Steve Joul, our expert naturalist, will be leading a stream and pond life safari. Again, more information will be given on our website and via our email mailing list.
Both of these events are suitable for children, provided that they are accompanied by a responsible adult.
Adel Moor on 9th June 2024: bilberries in the foreground, and heather in the background.
Friends of Adel Woods on Adel Moor on 21st April 2024
This evening we held our Annual General meeting, attended by seven members of our committee and one Friend, with apologies from two members of our committee who were away, and two Friends.
The minutes of last year’s Annual General Meeting were approved.
The Chair gave a report of the past year’s activities and thanked the committee and all volunteers for the work done. His report can be read below.
The Treasurer presented the Income and Expenditure account for the year. The funds held on 31st March 2024 were £88.82. Since then a grant of £159.96 from Alwoodley 2030 has been received giving a current balance of £248.78.
Thanks were given to Rob Hall for auditing the accounts.
Rob Hall was re-elected as auditor for the forthcoming year.
All the existing members of the committee chose to remain in office. Roger Gilbert was elected Chair; Judith White was re-elected Treasurer; Sue Chambers was elected as minute secretary.
All present unanimously gave a vote of thanks to David Preston for all the work he has done in Adel Woods and with Friends of Adel Woods in the last year.
The Chair proposed votes of thanks to Judith White and Stephanie Clarke, who will shortly be leaving Alwoodley, for all the work they have done as Treasurer and Secretary respectively, and as committee members and members of Friends of Adel Woods over the last fifteen years. This was unanimously approved.
The Chair’s Report
We are just about to complete our fifteenth year of FOAW and in the last year we have had a successful year with many work parties and educational walks and talks.
Work Parties
Repairing the Stairfoot Lane steps on 30th September 2023
Starting with work parties, we have had 18 work days comprising:
13 mornings of litterpicking
7 mornings working on Adel Moor – removing bracken, brambles and saplings. Three of these took place on a Wednesday.
1 morning on Adel Pond and ditches with David Preston
2 mornings on Adel Bog, one with David Preston and one with David and Heather Wagstaffe
5 mornings of path clearing – including repairing the Stairfoot Lane steps
1 morning clearing scrub and bracken from around the Buck Stone
2 days of nest box cleaning and surveying with Steve Joul
1 morning of mowing the cricket meadow and learning to scythe with Leeds City Council ranger, Rachel Todnor.
The astute among you will have noted that the list totals thirty two activities, not eighteen. This is because on many of our work parties we do both litter picking and some other activity – such as path clearing or working on Adel Moor.
Joint Events with Alwoodley 2030
A joint work party from FOAW and Alwoodley 2030 in August 2023
In addition, Friends of Adel Woods supported two events organised by Alwoodley 2030: in August 2023, clearing scrub from around the young fruit trees planted in the former rugby practice field; and in January this year, pruning and clearing scrub from around a mature apple tree in Copper’s Field behind the Buckstones.
Educational Events
David Preston shares some fascinating facts about bats
We had four educational events in the year May 2023 to April 2024.
In June last year, we took the opportunity of a band concert on Alwoodley Village Green to have a stall to promote awareness of our work. Thank you to Judith, Stephanie and Tamsin for helping with that – and to Daddy Kool the ice cream man who helped us to put up the gazebo in a strong wind.
On the 1st September, Leeds City Council ranger, David Preston, led a very successful bat walk.
On the 8th October our committee member and local naturalist, Steve Joul, led an equally successful fungal foray.
And on the 5th May Steve led our annual birdsong walk when we saw or heard twenty five species of birds including a willow warbler.
A birdsong walk in Adel Woods with Steve Joul in May 2024
We are grateful to David and Steve for leading these walks. I know from the messages I receive after these events that people really enjoy them.
Grants
The Friends of Adel Woods’ tree popper
We received two grants this year:
In August, Alwoodley Parish Council gave us a grant to enable us to purchase a tree popper, a fantastic tool for removing saplings from Adel Moor and Adel Bog.
In March this year, Alwoodley 203 gave us a grant to purchase four top of the range nest boxes.
We are very grateful to the Parish Council and Alwoodley 2030 for their generosity.
And Finally…
Thanks are due to our committee and volunteers for all the work that they have done over the last year. We are looking forward to another year of fun, laughter and friendship.
And thank you again to David Preston and Steve Joul for leading events over the last year, and to Leeds City Council Ranger, Rachel Todner, who mowed the cricket meadow and taught us to how to use a scythe.
About Friends of Adel Woods
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events. We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, just come along to one of our work parties or get in touch by leaving a comment on this website.
Friends of Adel Woods prepare to survey and clean nest boxes in January 2024
Last night, after yet another day of heavy rain, I went to bed thinking that today would be a wash out and nobody would turn up for today’s Friends of Adel Woods event (I know that I tend to go on about the weather in these blog posts but, in my defence, we do live in the UK, and we have just dripped through the wettest Autumn, Winter and Spring for years).
It was therefore a bit of a shock when I drew the curtains this morning and it was a beautiful day with not a cloud in sight.
Even better, we had an excellent turn out of thirteen volunteers (including yours truly) for today’s work party: two for litter picking, one for a bit of litter picking and working on the moor; and another ten of us working exclusively on Adel Moor.
Friends of Adel Woods working on Adel Moor on the 25th May 2024
The litter pickers worked mainly around the area where houses on the Buckstone estate back on to Adel Woods, and around the children’s play area on Alwoodley Village Green. Fortunately, there wasn’t a huge amount of rubbish to pick up but they picked up a couple of bagfuls.
A view across Adel Moor on the 25th May 2024
On Adel Moor we continued the work we have been doing for almost fifteen years – removing tree seedlings, young saplings and brambles – concentrating today, as on 21st April on the lower western end of the moor.
There is still a lot of work to do, but today the heather and bilberries were looking great. It is not easy to remember what the moor looked like in the early days of Friends of Adel Woods, and so here is a photograph of our treasurer, Stephanie, working on the moor on the 24th May 2011. It shows just how much our Parks and Countryside rangers, and Friends of Adel Woods and other groups have achieved over the years.
Working on Adel Moor on the 24th May 2011
Our volunteers did an excellent job in very warm conditions and, once again, our trusty tree popper did excellent service in speeding up the removal of unwanted saplings.
Man conquers nature – with a tree popper!
Another really enjoyable morning and here are some of our happy volunteers!
Tired and happy volunteers after a good morning’s work!
ABOUT FRIENDS OF ADEL WOODS
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to help maintain Adel Woods and encourage people to enjoy them. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out various jobs or ”work parties”, and we also put on educational events. We are a very friendly group and welcome new members who want to help preserve our special woods, enjoy fresh air and exercise in the woods and make new friends. If you would like to take part in our activities, just come along to one of our work parties or get in touch by leaving a comment on this website.
Our next events
Next Thursday, the 30th May, we will be holding our Annual General Meeting. All are welcome, so if you would like to attend, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website. The only pre-requisite for attending is that you care about Adel Woods and would like to help to maintain them.
Our next work party will be on Sunday the 9th June when we will be litterpicking, and working on Adel Moor with Leeds City Council ranger, David Preston, from 10 am to 12 noon.
Our next educational event will be on Sunday the 21st July from 2 to 4 pm, when our expert naturalist Steve Joul will be leading a stream and pond life safari.
Further details are given on our homepage and will be sent out via our mailing list.
Tonight David Preston, Parks and Countryside ranger with Leeds City Council, led an enthusiastic band of “bat detectorists” on a walk round Adel Woods: our mission to learn about bats. It was a clear, dry and mild evening so a good night for finding the object of our study.
We met at 7.15 in Old Leo’s car park where David (pictured in the orange hi-vis jacket) outlined the plan for the evening and gave an excellent introductory talk about bats, their importance ecologically and how to survey them, and shared some interesting facts about bats around the world. Perhaps one of the most surprising facts was that there are seventeen species of bat in the UK, several of which can be found in the suburbs of Leeds! David handed out paper “cut outs” showing the relative sizes of some of the UK species.
In preparation for this evening’s walk, yours truly (ie me!) had been out in the woods three evenings this week to find out when and where bats were likely to be found. The good news is that there were bats present in various locations – in Old Leo’s carpark; by the track leading down to the cricket pavilion; in the practice rugby pitch to the north of Crag Lane, and around the picnic area and Adel Crag. At this time of year they seemed to be appearing in flight at about 8.10 pm (sunset was at about 7.40 pm). At this time of year, bats are building up their fat supplies to prepare for their winter hibernation.
A pair of the twenty or so bat detectors brought by David
Whilst it is possible to see bats in flight at dusk, it is not possible – at least not for the non-specialist – to identify the particular species by sight. The way to detect the presence of bats, especially as it gets dark, and to identify which species is present, is by using a “bat detector”. And so David had brought twenty of so for us to use.
David explained that whilst bats have excellent eyesight, they find their way about and catch their insect prey using an echo-location system. As they fly, they send out high pitch sounds, and the echos from these sounds enable the bats to track and catch insect prey. The high pitch sounds are too high for human hearing and so the bat detector picks up the sounds and converts them into clicks which humans can hear. It also identifies the pitch of the sounds which helps you to know which species of bat is making them, and David handed out sheets which gave the frequency of the different bat clicks. For example, the noctule bat, the UK’s largest bat makes clicks at the frequency of 25kHz; the pipistrelle on the other hand, makes clicks at the frequency of 50kHz.
After a quick lesson on how to use the bat detectors, we made our way to have a look at some bat boxes which Friends of Adel Woods made and put up in the woods in January 2010 under the tutelage of Steve Joul, then a ranger with Leeds Parks and Countryside.
Steve Joul holding a bat box in January 2010 to show the slot in the bottom of the box used by bats to enter and leave the box
We put up eight bat boxes near Old Leo’s clubhouse, four on each of two trees. We put the boxes approximately twenty feet up, with the boxes on each tree facing roughly North, South, East and West so that the bats could choose the best for them. Bat boxes differ from tit nest boxes in that they don’t have a hole on the front of the box. Instead, the back of the box protrudes down below the box and bats land on this and then crawl into the box and come out again through a slot in the bottom.
The Echo Meter Touch Active Bat Detector
Whilst Friends of Adel Woods put up the boxes, it would be illegal for us to take them down and have a look inside. This was therefore a good opportunity for David to use his specialist Echo Meter Touch Active Bat Detector which fits on a smart phone, to see if there were any sounds of bats in the vicinity of the boxes. Unfortunately, it detected no activity near either set of boxes.
However, when doing our annual survey of the FOAW tit boxes, two years running we were surprised to find a noctule bat hibernating in one of them! David also recounted that when surveying dormice in North Yorkshire (which he is licensed to do) he has found bats roosting in dormouse nesting boxes; and he has even found a tit box containing a tit nest and eggs, with a dormouse sharing the box!
From the bat boxes we made our way towards the moor, past the cricket pitch, looking out for bats and listening for any noises coming from our bat detectors. The first clear sounds and sightings of bats came as we crossed the stream behind the cricket pavilion. Our detectors told us that the bats in the area were noctule (25kHz), pipistrelle (50kHz) and soprano pipistrelle (55kHz) bats.
From there we made our way up to Adel Moor, which we thought could be a good place to see and detect bats. However, we just picked up the odd sign of bat activity. So yours truly took the opportunity to explain the importance of the moor as a habitat for common lizards and green hairstreak butterflies, and to talk about the work which Friends of Adel Woods and the Parks and Countryside rangers have done to maintain the moor.
Part of the screen of David’s Echo Meter bat detector
From the moor we returned to Old Leo’s carpark via the cricket pavilion and made our way from there to the disused rugby pitch where there have been a number of bats earlier in the week. Again we detected bats but not as many as seen on earlier evenings – and the battery on David’s Echo Meter ran out!
However, when we were in the disused rugby pitch we heard tawny owls calling from opposite ends of the field.
By now it was 9.15 pm and time to finish. The preliminary results from David’s Echo Meter bat detector, subject to proper analysis, were that we saw and detected four species of bat:
noctule
pipistrelle
soprano pipistrelle
natterers bat
This is a print out from David’s Echo Meter. As can be seen, most bat activity was detected in the area in front of the cricket pavilion.
Thank you to David Preston for leading an interesting and enjoyable walk, and thanks to everyone who attended. It was a great evening.
I hope that you have found this blog post interesting. The next “educational” event organised by Friends of Adel Woods will be on the afternoon of Sunday the 8th October 2023, when Steve Joul will be leading a Fungal Foray.
Friends of Adel Woods were formed in 2009 to protect, enhance and maintain Adel Woods and to work with Leeds City Council and other groups and organisations to that end. We meet one weekend morning a month to carry out a variety of tasks in the woods. If you would like to join us, have a look at our website for upcoming events: we welcome everyone who would like to help us to look after the beautiful woods on our doorstep.
Today was our final “Bracken Pulling Wednesday” on Adel Moor, and our fourth morning of working on the moor during July. Today we had an excellent team of six volunteers – and the next day a seventh who turned up a day late, but still did an excellent morning’s work on his own!
Over the years Friends of Adel Woods, the Leeds City Council Rangers and various other groups have done a lot of work on the moor to keep it in good shape. The difference that the work has made can be seen by comparing views below of the northern area of the moor with the south western area which has not received as much attention.
The north eastern area of Adel MoorThe south western section of the moor: a profusion of heather, bracken, brambles and saplings
Our aim during our four July events has been to reduce the amount of bracken to allow other plants such as heather, bilberry and gorse to thrive. Clearing saplings in the western section of the moor is a task for another day using tools like tree poppers and mattocks.
We focused today on clearing areas of bracken where heather or bilberry were still present under the canopy of bracken.
We started in the southern area of the moor where we expected (based on our work last Saturday) to find a lot of heather surviving under the bracken. However, we found that much of the ground under the bracken was bare. We therefore moved round to the south western area where we did find a lot of heather surviving under the bracken.
Getting stuck in!
However, it was very clear that a lot of work needs to be done in the south western and western areas of the moor to clear saplings. There are a lot of young oak trees and birch trees.
Rose Bay WillowherbJuniper Polytrichum Moss
There is a modest amount of rose bay willow herb on the moor. We cleared some of this. It was considered rare until about 150 years ago but it has spread dramatically over the last hundred years probably due to the corridors provided by railways. After the second world war it was called “bomb weed” due to its tendency to appear in bomb sites. It has a beautiful flower.
During our bracken pulling we revealed a beautiful patch of star shaped moss -see the photo above. A quick look on an iPhone app told us it was Juniper Polytrichum Moss.
Thank you to all who have participated in bracken pulling during July – including the Meanwood Valley Volunteer Rangers who worked on the moor last Wednesday with David Preston.
PS
Thank you to the person who found my New Zealand sun hat and hung it up on a tree. We found it on Friday and it is now safe and sound!
Today was the first of our three “Bracken Pulling Wednesdays” led by Barbara. The bracken in question is on Adel Moor.
It was a lovely morning and eleven of us met in Buckstone Road at 10 am. On reaching Adel Moor, we were rewarded by the site of a kestrel hovering over the moor. Surely, a good omen!
In case you are wondering why we pull up bracken, it is because, if left to its own devices, it will out-compete other plants and create a mono-culture – as can be seen from the photographs. Adel Moor is a habitat worth preserving: it is the last bit of heathland in Leeds and home to plants like heather and bilberry and a population of lizards (of which we know there have been three sightings this year).
Last August Barbara led three bracken pulling Wednesdays and it is gratifying to see that the area we focused on last year is still largely clear of bracken.
We had a good morning and the eleven of us were able to clear a large area of bracken as can be seen in the photographs.
A big thank you to all the volunteers who helped today!
Five Friends of Adel Woods relaxing after a hard morning’s work!
A beautiful June morning and another great turn out of twelve Friends of Adel Woods, including four new volunteers.
Most of us met with David Preston, our local ranger, at 10 am in Buckstone Road.
Four of us set off litterpicking, starting at the Village Green and the main road near Tesco’s, and then heading along Crag Lane to the picnic area. We had another regular Friend doing some freelance litterpicking too.
The rest of us joined David in working on Adel Moor – pulling up bracken, rosebay willowherb, brambles and saplings.
The reason we do this is to preserve what is the last piece of moorland in Leeds which is also home to a precious colony of viviparous lizards. We haven’t seen any for a couple of years, but I am pleased – and excited – to say that today we had two separate sitings!! We didn’t get a photograph – as they are very quick and secretive creatures, but the photo below is one we took in April 2014.
Viviparous or common lizard found on Adel moor in April 2014
You may notice that the lizard in the photo has a truncated tail. This is because, if threatened by a predator, a viviparous lizard can shed its still-moving tail to distract the predator and escape. This is called “autotomy”, which is Greek for “self-cut off”.. I am pleased to say that in this instance the autotomy was due to some previous encounter, not the result of FOAW’s intervention, and the lizard can grow a new tail. No lizards were harmed in the taking of the photograph!
These lizards are called “viviparous”, which means giving birth to live young, because the females do not lay eggs: they incubate the eggs inside their bodies and give birth to between three and eleven live young in July.
Friends of Adel Woods with David Preston: 4th June 2023
Getting back to our morning’s work, we were lucky that David was able to bring two “tree poppers” which are excellent tools for rapidly pulling up small saplings up to about a metre tall.
A large and medium sized tree popper
We were able to pull up a large amount of bracken, brambles, rosebay willow herb and many small saplings and we had a very enjoyable – though warm! – morning.
Friends of Adel Woods: tidying up at the end of the morning: 4th June 2023
Friends of Adel Woods 