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Two hours of happy sanding and hammering at the ACA, and the Friends produced 18 bird boxes and 7 bat boxes.

Unfortunately, your reporter seemed to have a mental block and did not manage to hammer in a single nail during the morning, but he did make the tea and coffee and paint numbers on the bottom of the boxes!

Once again heartfelt thanks are due, not only to the enthusiastic volunteers, but also to Steve Joul for his wise and enlightened guidance!

Another fantastic effort by the FOAW gang:  20 bags of rubbish plus a number of items too large for to go in bags (eg a bicycle frame), the footpaths along and through the thickett on King Lane cleared, and rubbish cleared from Nanny Beck most of the way from King Lane down to the Slabbering Baby.

How do these human dynamos find the energy to do so much in two hours?!

Here’s how it looked at the end!

Tom Swire went through the woods and found amazing toadstools which looked like spoof items of confectionary from a bakery.

The toadstool is Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) which despite its attractive appearance is poisonous.

Clearing the Reed Sweet Grass

Steve Joul led an intrepid team of volunteers in clearing Reed Sweet Grass from the pond.  Reed Sweet Grass is an introduced species which is extremely vigorous and taking over the pond.  We cleared about a third of the pond – it is important not to remove too much so as to cause minimum disturbance to the small animals in the pond.

While Steve and his team were in the pond, another group of us were clearing vegetation from the Slabbering Baby.

Tom poses by the newly cleaned Slabbering Baby – a water fountain.

Afterwards a binbag or rubbish (cans, bottles and crisp bags) were picked up and disposed of.

Four happy Friends, the morning after the night before.  Last night it was Old Leo’s Rugby Club’s Fireworks Party and a group of us gathered for an hour to collect litter from the field and surrounding woods.

We wanted the woods to look their best for this afternoon’s nature walk – see the next post!

Great news arrived in today’s post:  FOAW is now a member of the BTCV (the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers)!

Four more bags of rubbish and numerous stretches of path cleared of encroaching holly.  Our intrepid and weary volunteers can sleep well tonight, satisfied with a job well done!

On a beautiful morning a group of happy Friends set to clearing paths at the top end of Alwoodley Plantation where they had become overgrown with holly.  We also picked up two binliners of rubbish.  Unfortunately, rather a lot of rubbish has appeared since our litter pick three weeks ago and there is much more to be gathered.

Thanks are due to the Parks and Countryside department of Leeds City Council – particularly Steve Joul and Jenny Watts – for the loan of excellent loppers, shears and litterpickers.

Thanks are also due to Tina for bringing us a sharps box.

In glorious sunshine, a record turn out of 20 Friends met at 10am in the carpark of Old Leo’s carpark. .

After taking a group photograph, we set off in different directions – some of us clearing the carpark of litter, some tidying up the litter which had accumulated on Crag Lane since our last litter pick, and the rest of us heading off in the direction of Adel Crag and Stairfoot Lane carpark.

By 11.45 we had gathered about 30 bags of litter, a plastic chair (out of the beck), a car wheel, and a large piece of yellow metal (about 5 feet by two feet in size).  This was in addition to 4 beer barrels which had been “flytipped” in the woods next to Crag Lane.

By this time it had started to spot with rain, and we made our way back to Old Leo’s.  By 12 it was throwing it down and about 10 of us sat down to a cup of tea and coffee, courtesy of Old Leo’s.

Over a hot drink I reported on my discussions on Friday with Steve Joul, and showed the group various maps of the woods which Leeds CC have provided. I reported that tasks which we can be getting on with are:  clearing paths which are becoming overgrown with holly; improving paths which become impassible in wet weather;  removing non-native plants, particularly Reed Sweetgrass, from the pond;  clearing Crag Lane; putting up bird boxes;  clearing the bank of the stream by Buckstone Grove.  Some of these tasks need special equipment, planning or money.  It was agreed that our next task will therefore be to clear paths which have become overgrown with holly. Litterpicking can be carried out at the same time as it is clear that litter is going to be an ongoing problem.

Thanks are due to everyone who took part.  Thanks are due to Fred who took most of our “booty” down to Meanswood Road tip.  Thanks are due to Leeds City Council for the loan of 10 litter pickers.  Thanks are due to Old Leo’s for the free tea and coffee.

Congratulations are due to David Hall who found the piece of yellow metal which is our  biggest piece of detritus so far.