A wintry surprise this morning when we woke to find half an inch of snow on the ground. Nevertheless, we had a clear blue sky which meant it was a beautiful crisp morning.
Our local ranger, David Preston, and his fellow ranger, Heather Wagstaffe, had scheduled this morning for carrying out some trimming of the trees on the southern boundary of Adel Bog and requested the help of Friends of Adel Woods in using the off-cuts to make a “dead hedge”.
Adel Bog is a special habitat in Adel Woods: home to a healthy population of heath spotted orchids, bog asphodel, rushes, flag irises, cotton grass, tormentil and crossed leaf heath, to name a few plants found there. Friends of Adel Woods have done a lot of work over the years to preserve it and improve its condition – removing brambles, tree saplings and bracken and I am pleased to say that this Autumn and Winter the bog is looking great. It is the wettest it has been for years – every footstep risks sinking six inches into the mud!
Bog asphodel on Adel Bog, June 2014
The purpose of trimming the trees was to increase the open area of the bog, to create a clear boundary, and to reduce the problem of trees dropping seeds into the bog, and thus turning the bog into woodland.
Five Friends responded to David’s call for help, and joined David and Heather at 11.40 am, by which time they had completed their work and were ready for the clear up.
We worked till 1 pm using some of the off-cuts to make stakes for future dead hedging around the bog, and using the rest to create a dead hedge to make a clear boundary along about 10 metres of the southern perimeter.
Adel bog, showing the dead hedging on the southern boundary
A dead hedge is a barrier made of natural materials, usually held in place with stakes, though on this occasion, due to time constraints, we wove the materials between the trees around the edge of the bog. Whilst the hedge is called a dead hedge, it is possible for off-cuts to take root or for plants to grow within it, so that it becomes a living hedge.
The purpose of creating a barrier around the bog is to keep it safe from disturbance, particularly from dogs whose droppings are very damaging to the bog flora and fauna.
At completion of our work, we put a couple of notices up in the dead hedge explaining its purpose.
Four Friends of Adel Woods standing next to the dead hedging on Adel Bog
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, and we also put on educational events. Recently, we have had a bat walk, and a fungal foray.
Our next “work party” is on Sunday the 10th December, when we will be litter picking, and carrying out path maintenance.
If you would like to take part in our activities, please get in touch by leaving a comment on this website – you should find a button below.
Today, David Preston and two fellow rangers from the Parks and Countryside Department spent the day working in Adel Woods, carrying out work which is beyond the scope of Friends of Adel Woods because it requires the use of a chainsaw.
They began by completing thinning out silver birches around Adel Crag, and creating habitat piles with the cut wood and scrub to promote biodiversity.
After this they cleared from paths three trees which had fallen in the recent storms (Storm Babet and Storm Ciarán).
The first was a tree which had fallen across the path leading down from the picnic area to the Meanwood Valley Trail – just at the junction with the MVT. Our treasurer, Steph, had already removed all the smaller branches with a pair of loppers, but the main branches needed to be tackled with a chainsaw.
Before: a fallen tree near the Meanwood Valley Trail (just visible, upper right quadrant)And after…
The two other large trees had fallen across a path near Adel Crag. David and his colleagues successfully removed these – a difficult job.
Before:two fallen trees across a footpath near Adel CragAnd after…
Finally, they went down to the Buck Stone, thinnng out 2 small trees, and opening up the area.
The plan is to carry out further work on Adel Bog later this year – removing four trees which are encroaching onto Adel Bog.
Thank you, David, to you and your colleagues for all the good work you do!
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, and we also put on educational events. Recently, we have had a bat walk, and a fungal foray.
Our next “work party” is on Sunday the 10th December, when we will be litter picking, and carrying out path maintenance.
If you would like to take part in our activities, please get in touch by leaving a comment on our website.
A pleasant morning and a good turn out of twelve volunteers.
Five of our volunteers chose to litterpick – including two from Litter Free Leeds! Between them they picked up about four bags of rubbish.
The rest of us helped David Preston, our local ranger, to dredge Adel Pond (also known as Mill Fall pond). This pond is man-made and was dug to supply water to a flax mill that once operated here. The pond fell into disuse and silted up until about thirty years ago when Steve Joul led a team of volunteers in digging it out again. It is now a wonderful habitat for frogs and newts and all sorts of aquatic insects.
Dredging the pond has been an annual task for Friends of Adel Woods every Autumn since (and including) 2009. The first thing we have to do every year is clear out the many large logs and rocks which somehow find their way into the pond. Many are concealed under the water and a bit of a tripping hazard. Fortunately, there was only one minor mishap today!
Once the logs and rocks have been removed, it is a question of digging up silt and putting it into buckets to transport away. Today we had four diggers in the pond, and one principal barrowman.
The pond is fed on the north side by a single ditch bringing in a stream of water throughout the year. Unfortunately, the stream also brings in lots of mud and clay as can be seen in the photos.
It is important, therefore, to clear as much mud and leaves from the ditch as possible and three volunteers focused on this task.
Each year we find in the mud where the stream enters the pond many broken fragments of china. Presumably these are the remains of cups, saucers, jugs and plates thrown into the pond by day trippers when Verity’s Cafe, which used to stand nearby, was in it’s heyday. Or perhaps they were thrown in when Verity’s closed down. This year, one item seemed to be a complete vase but unfortunately it shattered into many fragments as yours truly lifted it out of the mud.
At noon, we ceased work to wash down the equipment before heading home for a shower and a nice Sunday lunch.
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, and we also put on educational events.
If you would like to take part in our activities or be added to our mailing list, please get in touch by leaving a comment on our website. Our next event is on Saturday the 4th November when we will be litterpicking and working on Adel Bog with David Preston.
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.
Friends of Adel Woods and Alwoodley 2030 volunteers working on the community orchard
This evening, Friends of Adel Woods had our first ever evening “work party” led by our secretary, Stephanie.
It was a joint event with Alwoodley 2030 who are a group set up about a year ago under the umbrella of Climate Action Leeds. The aim of Alwoodley 2030 is to “activate community-driven solutions to address the loss of biodiversity and nature and the climate emergency”. You can find out more at their very active Facebook page: Alwoodley 2030: Climate Action Hub.
Our task this evening was to clear bracken and brambles that have grown up around the community orchard in Adel Woods. We had a great turn out of FOAW and Alwoodley 2030 volunteers – fifteen in all – and in an hour and a half of hard work, they made a huge difference.
The orchard was planted in March 2021 by Leeds Parks and Countryside Ranger, Steve Joul, assisted by his son, as part of Leeds City Council’s woodland creation scheme. There are ten trees comprising a range of varieties of apple and pear trees.
The trees were planted as very young saplings. If they seem far apart in the photos, it is because, before planting them, Steve researched the space each would need to grow into a fully mature tree.
Spot the four trees in the photo!
If you would like to find out more about the planting of the trees and their varieties, have a look at our blog entry for the 18th March 2021 – the link is given below.
Can you spot four more four fruit trees in the photo?Some of the team of volunteers enjoying a sense of achievement for a good evening’s work!
Since the trees were cleared, Steve has put some labels on them. For more information about the orchard, here is a link to our blog post for the 18th March 2021
I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post.
Friends of Adel Woods were set up in 2009 to protect, enhance and maintain Adel Woods and to work with other groups and organisations to that end. We welcome everyone would like to help us look after the beautiful woods on our doorstep.
The next Friends of Adel Woods “work party” is on Saturday the 16th September 2023, when we will be litterpicking and clearing scrub from around the Buck Stone. Have a look at our home page for more information.
Today we had a magnificent turnout of twelve volunteers to litterpick and to help Leeds City Council ranger, Rachel, work on the Orchid Meadow.
Three of our number chose to litterpick and ranged widely through the woods from Buckstone Road, where we met, to the pond, Crag Lane and the Stairfoot Lane carpark. They picked up up three bags of litter on the way.
The rest of us set off to the Orchid Meadow with Rachel, armed with a brush cutter, scythes, rakes and tarpaulins.
The existence of the Orchid Meadow came to our attention in Summer 2014 when our treasurer Judith discovered lots of orchids flowering there. At that time there were lots of young trees growing in the meadow and it was surrounded by swathes of himalayan balsam. Since then we have done a lot of work on the meadow, under the leadership of Steve Joul, and it has blossomed into a wonderful wildflower meadow – as can be seen from the photograph above.
What you cannot see in the photograph are the many common spotted orchids concealed among the buttercups.
Here is a photograph of one of them.
Common spotted orchid, Adel Woods, 14th June 2023
Traditionally meadows were mown in mid to late Summer. The cuttings were then allowed to dry and removed after a few days to produce hay to feed livestock. This allowed flowering plants the chance to set seed, and the removal of the mowings reduced the nutrient levels in the soil and allowed flowers to compete with more vigorous grasses.
Much of Adel Woods was originally farmland, as evidenced by the many dry stone wall field boundaries – the farmhouse for Crag Farm used to stand in the area now used as a picnic area. Without regular mowing meadows will soon turn into scrubland and eventually woodland as shown in this photograph of the same field, taken in July 2016.
Steve Joul in the Orchid Meadow, Adel Woods, 16th July 2016
So over the last few years, as a ranger with Leeds City Council Steve Joul has mown the orchid meadow in late Summer – and last year as a private citizen he scythed the meadow and raked off the cuttings on his own!
Last week, Rachel cut about half of the meadow with a brush cutter last week, and our task today was to continue the mowing – Rachel with a brush cutter and three of us with scythes – and rake off the mowings.
Friends of Adel Woods working on the orchid meadow
None of us had used a scythe before and Rachel showed us what to do. One essential part of using a scythe is to sharpen it with a whetstone every five minutes or so to keep it cutting well.
Friends of Adel Woods: sharpening a scythe with a whetstoneFriends of Adel Woods: scything the orchid meadow
Due to the fact that we are a volunteer group, we are not able to leave the cuttings to dry, so the next step today was to rake up the cuttings and transport them to compost heaps in the adjacent woods.
Two happy workers raking up the mowingsTwo more happy workers putting the cuttings onto a tarpaulin for transfer to a compost heap.Feeling happy after a good morning’s work
Friends of Adel Woods are a friendly group and we are always looking for new members. If you would like to help look after our woods, get some fresh air and exercise in beautiful surroundings, and make new friends, please get in touch.
Our next work party is on Saturday the 16th September 2023 when we will be clearing scrub from around our local landmark, the Buck Stone.
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
All except one of our current committee members attended. In addition, David Preston, ranger with Leeds City Council, and three “Friends” attended.
1. Three Friends sent apologies.
2. The minutes of the last AGM on 26th May 2022 were approved subject to minor amendments.
3. The Chair gave a report on activities since the last Annual General Meeting. This is printed in full below.
4. The Treasurer gave a report on the accounts for the last year. In fact, there had been only one item of expenditure in the last year.
5. Rob Hall was elected auditor for the coming year.
6. The following officers were elected unopposed:
Roger Gilbert: chair
Judith White: treasurer
Stephanie Clark: secretary
The existing members of the committee who were present all confirmed that they are willing to continue as members. In addition, another Friend had a rush of blood to the head and agreed to join the committee. The committee members are therefore: R Gilbert; J White; S Clark; R Hall; D Hampshire; S Chambers; S Joul; T Wragg; D Smith.
7. A vote of thanks was given to David Preston for the work he has done with the Friends of Adel Woods in the last year.
8. The meeting concluded with a wide-ranging discussion of other business including:
opportunities to apply for grants from Love Leeds Parks for footpath work;
the tree thinning work around Adel Crag is to continue this year;
the program of works for the coming year;
Steve Joul’s regular work on the one patch of Japanese knotweed over the last many years seems to have paid off as Steve could not find any remaining shoots this year;
how to deal with the problem of dog poo on Adel Moor.
The Chair’s Report
Star of Bethlehem in Adel Woods: 21 May 2023
We are very lucky to live near Adel Woods. Steve Joul did a walk around the woods on 16th April this year when he recorded: 23 bird species; 17 plants in flower; 4 species of insects; 7 species of fungi; and 20 grey squirrels. You can find the details in the blog post for 16th April.
The last year has been our first complete year of activities uninterrupted by Covid 19 since 2018-19. It was a bumper year.
We have two types of activities: work parties, and educational walks and talks.
WORK PARTIES
We had 18 work parties when we carried out the following work (NB the total number of activities adds up to more than 18 because each work party involves both litterpicking and some other work such as path clearing):
13 mornings of litterpicking;
4 mornings working on Adel Moor – removing bracken, brambles and saplings;
2 mornings on Adel Pond and ditches (and Judith cleaning the Slabbering Baby);
3 mornings on Adel Bog;
6 mornings of path clearing;
A day and a half of surveying and cleaning nest boxes
1 morning of working on the hospice woodland (plus a morning in October when Judith cleaned the monument at the entrance on Stairfoot Lane).
Litterpicking and path clearing in Adel Woods 21st January 2023
Of the eighteen work parties most were led by our chair, but three were led by David Preston; the nest box cleaning and surveying was led by Steve Joul; three of the mornings on Adel Moor were led by Barbara Wakefield; two litterpicking and path clearing events were led by Judith; and one by Rob. It is good that we have a range of people who are able and willing to lead a morning in the woods.
Working on Adel Bog with David Prestonon 30th November 2023
The mornings led by Barbara were a new venture – on a Wednesday morning and focussing on one task which did not need tools, pulling up bracken on the moor. These were very successful, attracting some new volunteers and achieving a great deal. We are going to repeat this in July this year.
Friends of Adel Woods pulling up bracken on Adel Moor: August 2023
EDUCATIONAL EVENTS
We had two educational events in the last year.
The first was a fungal foray with Steve Joul on the 12th November.. It was a beautiful afternoon and we had something like 45-50 attendees.
Steve Joul describing a fungus to a rapt audience on 12th November 2022
The second was our our annual birdsong walk on Sunday 14th May, again led by Steve Joul. We had about a dozen attendees. It was a very successful morning: we saw or heard 19 species of bird, and we saw woodpeckers entering and leaving a hole in a tree; a pair of jays on their nest; a woodpigeon sitting on its nest; tits using a Friends of Adel Woods nest box; and treecreepers entering a nesting hole in a tree near the entrance to Old Leo’s car park.
Steve Joul leading our birdsong walkon 14th May 2023
If you would like to know more about our activities, please have a look at our blog entries. They are written by someone I know well and love and respect, and they have some really good pictures!
There are a couple of other things worth noting during the year.
Firstly, in August last year, Steve single handedly scythed and raked the orchid meadow and made a brilliant job of it.
Secondly, in February of this year, David Preston and the Meanwood Valley Volunteer Rangers thinned trees, scrub and holly in front of Adel Crag and they have really improved the crag as a feature of the woods.
A view of Adel Crag (middle left) in February 2023 after clearance of scrub, trees and holly
Finally, at this time of year it is worth popping into Adel Woods to have a look at a beautiful, fragrant yellow azalea near the Stairfoot Lane carpark. If you go down the steps towards the stream, turn left onto the path after about the fifth step down, the azalea is about 25 yards along. It blooms in May and it has beautiful yellow flowers and a wonderful fragrance.
Yellow azalea in Adel Woods
On the same theme, in the next month, a large lime tree in the Stairfoot Lane car park will be coming into blossom in June, exuding a beautiful fragrance across the area. Make a note to enjoy it!
THANK YOUS
So as usual, I would like to thank our brilliant committee for all the work they have done: likewise all our wonderful volunteers. FOAW would not exist without the committee and volunteers. And I am looking forward to another year of fun, laughter and friendship with you all.
Thank you to Steve Joul for leading two wonderful educational walks over the last year – and for letting use his ladder for the nest box survey.
Thank you to David Preston for leading the events over the last year and we are looking forward to working with you again this coming year.
Finally, thank you to Old Leo’s for allowing us to use their carpark over the last year.
Alwoodley Plantation: Adel Woods; 12th November 2022
Friends of Adel Woods 