Category Archives: Uncategorized

Thanks to Val Compton for these pictures of the woods in the recent snow.

The bridge from Spring Hill

The Stairfoot Lane steps

The pond steps

Adel Pond

The bridge across Nanny Beck

Another year drawing to an end and time to survey and clean FOAW’s nest boxes once more.

It is important to clean old nesting materials from the nest boxes so that lice, fleas and diseases do not infect next year’s broods.

We had six volunteers in the morning, and split into two teams – the robins, led by your correspondent, and the blue tits led by Steve Joul.

Robins like to nest  in secret places and their nest boxes – which have a large open front – were concealed in the middle of holly bushes.  For the first half hour of searching, Team Robins were unable to find the first two boxes we sought.  However, we eventually found five of the six robin boxes placed by FOAW.

Four had not been used for nesting for the second year running – and it may be time to try moving them to different locations.  One contained a nest – and interestingly this was the one which was used for nesting last year – which again suggests that the others may not be in suitable positions.

Aerial view of the nest in the robin nest box

Comparing our nest with nests on the internet,it is unclear whether our nest was a robin’s nest or a blue or great tit’s nest.

Robin’s nest box used for the storage of acorns and the like.

One of our robin nest boxes – placed at low level – had been used by a squirrel or other creature for the storage of food.

Team blue tit surveyed and cleaned the nest boxes  provided for blue tits, great tits, nuthatches and similar sized birds.  Since all of these nest boxes were fixed at least three metres above ground, this required climbing a ladder and nerves of steel!

Virtually all of the tit boxes surveyed had been used for nesting – including one half eaten by squirrels – which, as Steve Joul commented, shows that the raising of young in Adel Woods is limited by the availability of nesting sites rather than by food or other factors.

One thing we did discover this year, though, was that there were more unhatched eggs in the nest boxes than we have found in previous years.  This may be due to the extremely wet summer we have had, or perhaps the very warm spell in early Spring followed by cooler, wet weather.

Steve Joul examines a the nesting material from the nuthatch nest.

At lunchtime, Team Robin and Team Blue Tit dispersed to carry out Christmas shopping and other familial duties.  However, the team leaders stayed on in the afternoon as “Team Robin Blue Tit” to survey further tit boxes.  In the course of our survey, we were visited and egged on by Beth, Graham and Judith – for which we are grateful.

In the afternoon we found one of the tit boxes contained a nuthatch nest – which is entirely different in character from a blue tit or great tit nest, being made of little chips of birch bark.  We know that tit box 38 down by the Slabbering Baby was used by a pair of nuthatches this year, and so that is two pairs of nesting nuthatches at least this year.

Santa’s Elves hard at work!

Thank you to Old Leo’s rugby club who let us meet in their Clubhouse to make our garlands.

Unfortunately, the Clubhouse had been booked for a charity event in the afternoon to raise funds for dogs and so we were forced out at midday and adjourned to your correspondent’s house to complete as many garlands as we could.

Nevertheless we had a very enjoyable morning – fortified with further shots of Barbara’s non-alcoholic fruit punch and Cooplands’ excellent mince pies (four for a pound!).

For the last two years, Steve Joul has shown us how to make Christmas Garlands and Yule Logs.  This year we decided to go solo and sell some garlands to raise funds.  You know the old adage:  Give a man a fish and he has a meal.  Teach a man to fish …and you get some peace and quiet at the weekends!

Mind what you do with that sellotape!

We decided not to make Yule Logs because it requires a bit more preparation.  However, today was the first step in making garlands – to make the bases so that next weekend we can get off to a flying start and make hundreds of garlands for sale.

We had an excellent turnout and made about 22 bases and a couple of specimen garlands so that the novices knew what the finished product will look like.

David astounds his co-workers when his halo momentarily slips!

Barbara treated us with non-alcoholic punch and we enjoyed some excellent mince pies from Cooplands (four for a pound!).

Yet another happy morning of activities, and friendship!

A morning litterpicking and improving the paths.

Only another 9.9 tonnes to go!

Thank you to Leeds City Council who delivered a load of crushed sandstone for us to play with.

Man Conquers Stream!

Dave  did a great job recreating the Corinth Canal near the picnic area and improving stretch of footpath which regularly turns into a quagmire.

Happy Friends!

Your correspondent had a walk through the woods this afternoon and is pleased to report that on Saturday the Path Clearing team did a wonderful job clearing the path by the Seven Arches and doing further work at Adel Bog.

Generally, it was good to see that path widening work we did on Crag Lane earlier this year has held up really well.  On the other hand, there are weeds a foot high on the path we cleared at the Slabbering Baby entrance.  If you walk down that path, walk on the weeds please!

A beautiful day.  Tina and Tom did some litter picking;  David did cleared paths; and the rest of us cleared holly and other vegetation round Adel Woods’ patch of Japanese Knotweed in preparation for Steve Joul treating it.

Japanese Knotweed is a problematic invasive plant which we are trying to eradicate in this country.  For more information have a look at the wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_knotweed.

Before…

The task turned out to be a lot bigger than anticipated and seven of us were engaged for an hour and half clearing holly.

…and after

A lovely surprise this morning when Win came to offer us some encouragement at this morning’s task.  Win fractured her humerus when she fell at our last event, but the good news is that it is healing well and she will be starting physiotherapy in a week or so’s time.

The Three Graces

We carried out two tasks this morning.  Chris, Carol and Beth litter picked, while the rest of us dug up saplings on the moor.  It was a beautiful morning, though very muggy.

The sapling force focused on a section in the middle of the moor and probably removed at least a hundred birch’s and oaks between us.

The moor is looking really good at the moment.  The heather is in full bloom and looks fabulous, and the good news is that there are lots of young heather plants coming through too.  There are also lots of bilberry plants – some still in flower (which seems quite late).

The account of the morning’s activities would not be complete without mentioning Hector and Chance who kept us entertained with their morning long struggle for possession of Hector’s tennis ball!

Tired and happy