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Steve Joul led a group of enthusiastic birdwatchers this morning.  Here is a report, written by the man himself – plus at the end a few additional miscellaneous sightings.  In all we spotted 27 species of bird – not bad for a morning’s birdwatching in a woodland on the edge of the city.

Adel Wood – Birdsong Walk 07.05.16

This Friends of Adel Woods walk was led by myself, Steve Joul, Leeds City Council Countryside Ranger. 15 people met in the car park at 7am when much of the talk from regulars was of how much better the weather was today compared to 12 months ago when we undertook our walk during heavy rain!

Although it was cool at first the sun gradually forced its way through the haze as a hot and sunny day developed.

After introductions, we watched a Great Spotted Woodpecker and listed to Chiffchaff before walking down the track towards the Cricket Club. Along the way were Wren, Robin, Song Thrush and Blackcap.

At the cricket ground a male Mistle Thrush fed on the pitch before flying up and singing from a Poplar tree, freshly clothed in shiny green leaves.

We then crossed Adel Moor where a Willow Warbler was singing and made our way to the Buckstone a sandstone feature that gives its name to the nearby housing estate. This had been recently tidied by the Friends of Adel Woods.

Next, we made our way to the Seven Arches Aqueduct which brought from Eccup Reservoir Leeds’ first alternative water supply to the River Aire. Here, we spotted a Nuthatch calling and searching upside down on a branch for food.

Further along the Meanwood Valley Trail we watched another Mistle Thrush carrying a large quantity of mud in her beak. She returned several times to build her nest in the fork of a Birch tree.

Arriving at the Slabbering Baby Spring, which marks the former location of Verity’s Tea Rooms, those who had important business to attend to returned to the car park. However, it was developing into such a lovely morning tht the remainder of the group decided to continue past Mill Fall Pond (the newt pond) and along Adel Beck to the Stairfoot Steps.

Along the way we enjoyed the colourful streamside flora which included Golden Saxifrage, Hard Fern and a superb bank of Marsh Marigold. Those at the front of the party also saw a Red Fox.

Up the steps we climbed, then past Adel Crag to the Hospice Wood where we were delighted by a trio of neat and colourful Bullfinches.

27 Bird species seen or heard

Blackbird: too many to count

Blackcap: 4 males singing: good views of 1 perched.  2 males chasing 1 female close by.

Blue tit:  too many to count

Bullfinch:  2 males chasing with female close by

Carrion crow: 2 including 1 mobbing a red kite

Chiff Chaff:  6 calling males including 1 bathing in a puddle

Dunnock: 1 pair seen, not calling

Goldfinch [noted by Sylvia]

Great spotted woodpecker: 1 female called observed in a tall tree

Great tit: 7 males singing

Grey heron: 1 flew over

Jay [noted by Roger]

Jackdaw:  1 flew over

Long tailed tit: 3 pairs seen foraging; 1 pair flew to nest

Magpie [noted by Roger]

Mallard:  3 flew over

Mistle thrush: 1 male singing in tree; 1 female carrying mud to nest

Nuthatch:  3 calling

Red kite:  1 pair, mobbed by carrion crow

Robin: too many to count

Skylark:  1 flying over neighbouring farmland

Song thrush:

Starling:

Stock dove: 1 pair occupying owl box

Swallow:  1 male singing on the wing

Wood pigeon: too many to count

Wren: too many to count.

Miscellaneous Sightings

In addition to the above, the group also saw:  3 blackbird eggs (hatched or destroyed by a predator); 8 campers and a tent; speckled wood butterfly; dog violet; ivy leaved speedwell; greater stitchwort; seven spotted ladybird; peacock butterfly; small tortoiseshell butterfly; orange tip butterfly (thanks for Sylvia for this information).

Lesser Celandine: Adel Woods, May 2010

The Buck Stone is a large outcrop of rock in the woods behind Buckstone Avenue.  It has been shown on maps for at least 200 years and the Buckstone estate is named after it!

The Friends of Adel Woods have worked on the area around the Buck Stone in recent years to ensure that it is remains an impressive feature of the woods and is not overgrown by trees, bracken and brambles.

When we first worked on the Buck Stone, we created a woodpile with the tree branches which we had cut – not only does it look neat, but it also creates a habitat for beetles, other insects and small animals.  When we arrived today, your correspondent was dismayed to see that all that was left of our log pile were a few charred logs.  It seems that last week someone set fire to it and the fire brigade had to be called.

Today we had a large group of Friends – including some enthusiastic young people – which was great.

The bracken had not yet broken through the surface of the ground and the main work was pulling up brambles – which we left on our log pile!

Again, we were blessed with good weather, and a good time was had by all.

An overcast but mild morning.  Only two days to the first day of Spring, and there was plenty of bird song to be heard.  There was also plenty of frog spawn in Adel Pond.

A good day for our Big Spring Clean.  Eleven of us met up to pick up litter.  There would doubtless have been more of us, but there was an unfortunate clash with a walk with Alwoodley Walkabout.

The woods actually looked reasonably tidy before we started:  last year’s undergrowth has all died back and this year’s growth has yet to begin.  The fact that we have picked up probably about five hundred bags of rubbish over the last six years – and removed lots of flytipped articles such as tyres, beer barrels, TVs and chemical drums – has clearly had a positive impact on the appearance of the woods.

Today we started in Old Leo’s, and then we worked our way along Crag Lane (in both directions),  and picked up litter from the fields, from the hospice woodland, around the Crag, and along the stream.  We probably picked up an average of two bags each – so twenty two bags in all.  In addition, Stephanie found a television and the remains of a fridge.  Tom found the remains of a duvet and your chairman found the remains of what appeared to be an iron bedstead in the stream.  However, the rubbish consists mainly of bottles, cans, crisp packets,sweet wrappers and bags of doggies’ do do.

With regard to the last mentioned, I know that the members of FOAW would like me to extend a big thank you to the dog owners who wrap their pooch’s excrement in black plastic bags and then throw the bags into the woods – or even hang them on trees.  We really enjoy the feeling of nausea as we pick these up and put them into our sacks of rubbish.

That aside, we all really enjoy our time in the woods, and the time we spend together, doing our best to make the woods as pleasant as possible for everyone to enjoy.

Thank you to everyone who turned out today.

.

Another great turn out of about 11.  We carried out three different tasks.

Fresh from building a railway!

Some of us went off an litter picked.

Some of us went and cleared mud, stones and leaf litter of the steps down from the Stairfoot Lane carpark.

Some, led by Steph, went up to the Hospice Woodland to clear away some of the brambles from the trees.  They were later joined by the step clearers.

Clearing brambles from the daffodils in the Hospice Woodland

A very satisfying morning.

Despite late notice of today’s event, we had a magnificent turn out of 11!  Three of us went off litter picking, and the rest of us went off in search of paths to clear.

Before

Judith told us about a tree which had fallen over blocking a path below the cricket pitches and off we set. After some false turns we managed to find the tree and it was a mighty humdinger.

…after

We set to with bow saws and loppers, clearing holly and cutting the branches of the fallen tree and after half an hour we completed the job.

Invigorated, we then continued down the path leading to Adel Pond,  cutting back holly to clear the path for the next year or so to come.

From the pond, we set off up the Meanwood Valley Trail, negotiating pot holes and pools of mud six inches deep, cutting back encroaching holly and clearing a path which the weary traveller can negotiate without wellingtons!

After months of almost daily rain, we were blessed with a beautiful morning and a blue sky – though – mysteriously – snow fell from that blue sky!

On our way back to Old Leo’s carpark at 12.15 pm the weather broke and seemingly out of nowhere a blizzard arrived. However, the  Friends of Adel Woods are truly indomitable and loved it!

Six Friends turned out at 9.30 am to complete our nest box survey with Steve Joul.

Starting at the Slabbering Baby, we put a new nest box up there (to replace one in need of refurbishment and then made our way down to the Seven Arches, cleaning and refurbishing nest boxes on our way.

Again it was a lovely morning.

A tit nest, with an unhatched egg

Again, nearly all of the tit boxes had been used – by tits.  We were not able to survey one box because a pair of blue tits were busily flying in and out!

We completed the job by about 12.15pm.  The survey results will be published when written
up.

Despite torrential rain over night, producing streams in the woods where your correspondent had never seen them before – including a stream running down the path leading from the hospice woodland field down to Old Leo’s – it was a lovely morning and a handful of us joined Steve Joul at 10 am to clean and survey the FOAW nest boxes.

Taking an hour for lunch, we managed to survey all the tit boxes north of Old Leo’s and down the Meanwood Valley Trail to the Slabbering Baby, and all of the robin boxes before the light began to fail at 4pm.  We cleaned them out, gave them a spray of disinfectant (harmless to wildlife), and reinstated them.  We replaced a couple of damaged ones.

As usual, the robin boxes were largely unused, and the ones which had been used had been used by tits.

The tit boxes had almost all been used – by tits.  Disappointingly, none of the nest boxes had been used by nuthatches.  Many of the nest boxes contained unhatched eggs and we measured these to see if we could identify whether they were great tit or blue tit eggs.

Unusually, we found dead adult birds in two of the nest boxes – a blue tit in one and a wren in the other. They were only recently deceased and it is likely that they were using the nest boxes for roosting but died in the recent cold weather.

We still had all the nest boxes to clean out from the Slabbering Baby down to the Seven Arches.  See our next post!

Tomorrow being scheduled for the surveying of Adel Woods nest boxes, Brian, Andrew and David came round to your correspondent’s garrett to help refurbish half a dozen nest boxes taken down and replaced last January due to their need for repair.

An hour and a half of banter, and we had six beautiful homes for the birds of Adel Woods.

A happy morning of calm and creativity making Christmas Wreaths in the bar of Old Leo’s.

The soothing sound of Christmas carols, the snip of wire cutters and secateurs, and easy conversation. The taste of coffee and mince pies.

What a nice way to ease yourself into Christmas!

Thank you, and a very happy Xmas, to Old Leo’s Rugby Club for the use of their premises.

A pleasant morning and eleven of us turned out to help Steve Joul thin out the trees in the hospice woodland.

If you are wondering why this is necessary, it is because they have been planted too close together.  Mature trees need to have up to ten metres of space on either side.  Many of the trees in the hospice woodland are planted no more than two metres from their neighbours and are growing into each other.  Left unmanaged, the trees will not prosper.

On the other hand, the good news is that the hospice wood contains a fine range of native trees and hopefully the trees which are left in place will grow into fine specimens.

Steve demonstrated how to safely fell a tree using a bow saw (the bird’s beak method) and then we set to in teams – felling trees which Steve had marked, and then cutting the  fallen timber up into smaller pieces which will rot down, providing habitat for beetles and insects.

At the end of our morning’s work, the area where we were working looked far better as there was clearly room for the remaining trees to grow and spread unhindered.