A cool and damp day, but not enough to cool or dampen down the spirits of seven Friends of Adel Woods!
Today the plan was to litterpick and work with David Preston, Leeds City Council ranger, on Adel Bog.
We met up with David at the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods in Buck Stone Road. Two of us chose to litterpick, while five of us chose to work with David on Adel Bog.
Our plucky litterpickers set off
The litter pickers made their way up to the village green, along Crag Lane to the Stairfoot Lane car park and then back along Crag Lane to the Slabbering Baby and back to Buck Stone Road. En route they collected two bags of litter.
Adel Bog looking westwards
The “bog team” transported tree poppers, mattocks, saws and loppers to Adel Bog where the plan was to remove saplings and brambles and create a “dead hedge” around the boundary of the bog.
The bog is a special habitat in Adel Woods. It is home to heath spotted orchids, bog asphodel , cotton grass, and other plants which are not found elsewhere in Adel Woods. Friends of Adel Woods have done a lot of work on the bog over the years to preserve it: if saplings and brambles are not removed, the bog will soon turn into woodland.
David standing in front of our new stretch of dead hedge
A dead hedge is what it says on the tin (or would do if it were in a tin!), a hedge but made with stakes, tree branches, uprooted saplings, brambles and the like. We started making a dead hedge last year and we were pleased to see that willow wands in the hedge had taken root to make the hedge even more effective.
Two friends of Adel Woods – with a tree popper (yellow device on the left)
The purpose of the dead hedge is to deter people from creating paths across the bog or picnicking there and to preserve this special spot in Adel Woods.
David with three happy members of our team, standing in front of the dead hedge
We removed many saplings with the use of our tree popper, and uprooted many brambles, all of which went into the construction of our dead hedge. Thank you David and team!
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, just come along to one of our work parties or 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.
For further information, please have a look at our home page.
An overcast and damp day, but a good turn out of ten Friends met at 10 am in Buck Stone Road by the Slabbering Baby entrance to the woods. Our mission to pick up litter and remove fallen trees and encroaching brambles from paths.
The Litter Pickers
Rubbish found at Adel Crag
Three of our group chose to pick up litter and made their way up to Crag Lane and along Crag Lane to Adel Crag and Stairfoot Lane carpark.
The bulk of the litter was by Adel Crag where someone seemed to have held some sort of event, leaving a lot of rubbish behind – including wood and large lumps of foam from a bed or settee.
All in all, our valiant litterpickers picked up four full bags of rubbish plus large lumps of foam which wouldn’t fit in them. They were unable to remove the heavy wood. They also spotted a buried bag of rubbish by Stairfoot Lane car park but they were unable to unearth it.
The path clearers
Two of our number set off to Alwoodley Plantation (on the northern side of Crag Lane) with the intention of clearing holly which has grown across the paths there. However, they found that paths were also obstructed by trees and branches which had fallen across them during Storm Lilian on the 22nd August. They had a productive time, but there is still lots to do.
Clearing a fallen silver birch in Alwoodley Plantation
At the same time, yours truly and the remaining four path clearers made our way down past the Slabbering Baby to the bridge over Adel (or Meanwood) Beck. From there we followed the path by the side of the beck leading towards Stairfoot Lane.
Storm Lilian on the 22nd August had blown over a number of trees along this path. In addition, the path had been made narrow in various places by encroaching brambles.
Taking a breather after cutting back bramblesAnother fallen tree: before….…and after
We got about three quarters of the way to Stairfoot Cottage before it was time to finish and return to Buck Stone Road. Another great work party in Adel Woods!
Three 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, just come along to one of our work parties or 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.
Our next events
Our next educational event is a Fungal Foray with our expert naturalist, Steve Joul, on Sunday 17th November 2024.
Our next work party is on Sunday the 24th November 2024 when we will be litterpicking and working with David Preston, our local countryside ranger, to dredge Adel Pond and clear the ditches feeding it.
For further information, please have a look at our home page.
This afternoon we had our third annual Autumnal “Fungal Foray” with our local expert naturalist, Steve Joul. This was not a foraging event, but a chance to discover and learn about the amazing world of mushrooms and fungi.
We met in Alwoodley Village Green car park at 1.50 pm and Steve gave an introduction to Adel woods and fungi in general and showed us a spectacular golden bootleg fungus found on a fungal foray in Roundhay yesterday.
A golden bootleg fungus, found in Roundhay Park on 28th September 2024
Having introduced the talk, Steve led us into the area of woodland between the play area and Crag Lane to see what we could find.
There are over fifteen thousand species of fungi in the UK, which means that it is impossible to know the names of all of them. Some can only be identified with the help of a magnifying glass or microscope and text book. The task of identifying mushrooms and fungi is made more difficult because there is often more than one common name for a species, and the Latin names can change as species are re-classified.
“This looks interesting!”
Steve has made a list of the two hundred or so most common mushrooms and fungi which we are likely to encounter in Adel woods, giving their recommended English names and their Latin names. Impressively, Steve knows the Latin names for many of these species. If you would like a copy of the list, please email us or send us a comment via the comment button on this page.
From the woodland, we made our way to the track leading down to the cricket pavilion and from there to the woodland below Adel Moor. As we walked we searched for interesting looking fungi which Steve examined, identified and told us about.
A branch infected by Green Elfcup
The find of the day was a piece of timber hosting Green Elfcup (chlorociboria aeruginascens). The mycelium (or root structure) of this fungus turns its host into a vivid blue green colour. The wood that this fungus infects, known as ‘green oak’ was highly prized by fine woodworkers in the 18th and 19th centuries, who used it in their intricate inlays for decorative wooden boxes known as “Tunbridge Ware”.
“So this is what we have found…”
At quarter to four, Steve reviewed all the finds of the day. There is a list of all the fungi and mushrooms, and photographs of some of them, below.
The afternoon’s harvestCommon earth ball (scleroderma citrinum)Birch polypore (Fomitopsis betulina)Blushing bracket (daedaleopsis confragosa) photo taken by C ZankerCommon rustgill (gymnopilus penetrans)Deceiver (laccaria laccata)Hoof fungus (fomes fomentarius)Green Elfcup (chlorociboria aeruginascens)Coral Spot (nectria cinnabarina) sexual stage orange and asexual stage red
The fungi and mushrooms we found
We found twenty six species, including two new ones (for Friends of Adel Woods) shown in red type:
Beech Woodwart (hypoxylon fragiforme)
Birch polypore (formitopsis betulina)
Birch woodwort (jackrogersella multiformis)
Blistered cup (peziza vesiculosa)
Blushing bracket (daedaleopsis confragosa)
Brown rollrim (paxillus involutus)
Butter cap (collybia butyracea)
Candlesnuff fungus (xyaria hypoxylon)
Common bonnet (mycena galericulata)
Common earthball (scleroderma citrinum)
Common rustgill (gymnoplius penetrans)
Coral spot (nectria cinnaberina)
Deceiver (Zaccaria laccata)
Ganoderma bracket (ganoderma sp.)
Green elfcup (chlorociboria aeruginascens)
Hairy curtain crust (stereum hirsute)
Hoof fungus (fomes fomentarius)
Horsehair parachute (marasmius androsaceus)
Jelly ear (auricularia auricula-judae)
Ochre brittlegill (russula ochroleuca)
Poisonpie (hebeloma crustuliniforme)
Rufous milkcap (lactarius rufus)
Stump puffball (apioperdon pyriforme)
Sulphur tuft (hypholoma fasciculate)
Sycamore tar spot (rhytisma cerium)
Willow shield (pluteus salicinus)
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, just come along to one of our work parties or 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.
Our next events
Our next educational event is a Fungal Foray with our expert naturalist, Steve Joul, on Sunday 17th November 2024.
Our next work party is on Sunday the 24th November 2024 when we will be litterpicking and working with David Preston, our local countryside ranger, to dredge Adel Pond and clear the ditches feeding it.
For further information, please have a look at our home page.
Adel Crag, partially concealed by two fallen oak trees. Photo taken by Val Compton
Two teams today: one to pick up litter, and the other to clear up some of the trees toppled by Storm Lilian on the 23rd August. Two trees which are beyond our capacity to tackle are two mature oaks blown over onto Adel Crag. We are hoping that the Forestry Department will clear the trees away.
The tree team
Five of us set off from the Stairfoot Lane car park along Crag Lane. Our first target was a fallen tree about 50 yards along which someone had partially cleared from the path. We spent ten minutes clearing it fully from the path, before moving on to the picnic area.
The picnic area, looking southwards down the Meanwood Valley Trail
At the picnic area a large silver birch had blown over the course of the Meanwood Valley Trail. It had also fallen onto a small oak tree, breaking some of the branches from the oak. The branches from the trees covered one of the picnic tables, rendering it inaccessible.
A tangle of birch and oak branches
We set to with loppers and bow saws and it turned out to be a much bigger job than anticipated, taking us nearly an hour and a half to clear the debris.
The picnic table covered in birch and oak branches
After we finished, the picnic table was completely cleared – and it was a pleasure to see some people sitting at it enjoying a picnic a few days later.
Happy Friends of Adel Woods relaxing after a job well done!
We ran out of time to clear away all of the birch, but the tree trunk was really a job for a chainsaw. We are hoping that if and when the forestry department clear away the oak trees from Adel Crag, they will spend an extra five minutes removing what is left of the birch tree.
The litter pickers
While the path clearers were with saws and loppers, our happy team of litter pickers were busy on Stairfoot Lane and in the woods – picking up five bags of litter.
Sadly, they found a lot of flytipping – two carpets, tyres, tiles, garden waste, and bags of rubbish.
Tyres dumped in Adel WoodsRubbish awaiting collection in the Stairfoot Lane carpark
JOIN FRIENDS OF ADEL WOODS
We hope that you have enjoyed reading of our activities.
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, just come along to one of our work parties or 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.
Our next events
Our next work party is on Sunday the 13th October 2024 when we will be litterpicking and working with David Preston, our local countryside ranger, to dredge Adel Pond and clear the ditches feeding it.
On Saturday the 2nd November we will be litterpicking and working with David on Adel Bog
For further information, please have a look at our home page.
At 10 am today two Friends joined David Preston, Leeds City Council ranger, in carrying out further work to improve the orchid meadow (aka “the cricket meadow”).
FOAW had spent a couple of mornings mowing the meadow already (see our blog posts for the 16th August and the 18th August) but had only managed to mow about a third of it. Mowing is important because it encourages bio-diversity and in particular a range of wildflowers.
Pulling up Himalayan balsam
While David set to with the brush cutter, yours truly got to work with a scythe, and our second plucky volunteer, Sharon, got to work pulling up Himalayan balsam around the northern edge of the meadow.
Scattering yellow-rattle seeds
Although it was a lovely day, heavy rain the day before made the mowing heavy going as the grass lay flat along the ground and so, after about an hour, David ceased mowing and he and Sharon raked up the mowings and turned to other tasks.
Part of the meadow had largely turned to a dense crop of grass and so, having mown it this morning, David and Sharon scarified the area and then scattered yellow rattle seeds.
Yellow-rattle is an annual that thrives in grasslands, living a semi-parasitic life by feeding off the nutrients in the roots of nearby grasses. For this reason, it is now often used to turn grassland back to meadow – by feeding off the vigorous grasses, it eventually allows more delicate wildflowers to grow. It is called Yellow-rattle because it has yellow flowers and when they turn to seed the seed pods give a distinctive rattle. If you would like to know more, click this link
Sowing wild flower seeds
Having scattered the yellow-rattle seeds, they scarified another area of the meadow and scattered some woodland edge wild flower seeds.
In the meantime, yours truly was still scything away.
We finished work at about 12.30.
JOIN 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 – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Our next events
Our next work party is on Saturday the 21st September when we will be litterpicking and path clearing.
Our next educational event will be on Sunday the 29th September 2024 from 2 pm to 4 pm when local naturalist Steve Joul will be leading a fungal foray. Please note, this is not an event for collecting mushrooms to eat, but an opportunity to learn about the many species of fungi to be found in Adel Woods.
For further information, please have a look at our home page.
A fine evening for a bat walk led by our local council ranger, David Preston, ably supported by fellow ranger Toby Amos from Gotts Park in Armley. We had thirty five attendees – twenty six adults and nine children.
We met in Alwoodley Village Green car park at 7.15 pm and, after introductions, David distributed bat detectors and information about the seventeen species of bats which breed in the United Kingdom.
Bats come out at dusk and fly around silently (to the human ear) at great speed. Unless you are a real bat expert, the only way to identify bat species is by using a bat detector.
A pair of electronic bat detectors
Bat detectors pick up very high pitched sounds made by bats in flight and convert them to a pitch which humans can hear. Different species of bat make sounds of a specific pitch so that it is possible using a detector to identify the type of bat you can see whizzing through the air above you.
The seventeen species of bat which breed in the UK
Armed with our bat detectors, we made our way along Crag Lane to Old Leo’s Rugby Club’s car park. Here David gave us some tuition on how to use the bat detectors.
David explains how to use a bat detector
Bats are able to see, but do not have very good night vision, so they use send out regular high pitched shouting sounds which we can’t hear and use the echos that come back from the objects around them to navigate their way through the trees and around their local area, and hunt for insects while flying. This is a process called echo-location and it is the high pitched shouting sounds which bat detectors pick up. There are various types of bat detector and we were using ones which you can adjust to different frequencies to identify bats in the vicinity.
Listening for bats in the vicinity of the bat boxes in Adel Woods
From Old Leo’s we made our way into the woods to look at some bat boxes put up by Friends of Adel Woods In January 2010. While having a look at the bat boxes, we got our first clicks from some of the bat detectors, but we were unable to spot any bats flying around.
Bats don’t build a nest but find somewhere they can roost or raise their young in holes in trees, caves or buildings – or in tailor-made bat boxes. Bat boxes are different from nest boxes for tits and sparrows in that they don’t have a hole in the front. Instead, there is a thin slot in the bottom of the box and bats land below and crawl up into the box through the slot.
Having said the above, bats will sometimes roost in bird nest boxes. A few years ago, when Friends of Adel Woods were cleaning and surveying our nest boxes, we were amazed to find a noctule bat hibernating in one of them. We were even more surprised the following year to find a noctule bat – presumably the same one – hibernating in the same nest box. On each occasion we immediately closed the box and put it back up causing as little disturbance to the bat as possible.
In the picnic area: “Look – there’s a bat!”
From the bat boxes we made our way along Crag Lane to the picnic area where we got our first clear clicks from the bat detectors and sightings of bats in flight. It is always an exciting moment to hear the bat detectors start to click away and spot a bat flitting to and fro as it hunts for insects around the canopy of the trees. A pipistrelle bat will eat 3,000 tiny insects in a single night and it is awe-inspiring that it catches these insects using only sound echos to identify where they are, their size and shape, and their direction of travel.
Adel Crag
From the picnic area we made our way to Adel Crag, where we saw and “heard” more bats.
An interesting fact about Adel Crag, is that the sculptor Henry Moor said that the landscapes which most influenced his work were the slag heaps of Castleford and Adel Rock. Today the Crag’s magnificence was partly obscured by a huge oak tree which had fallen over it, blown over by the recent Storm Lilian.
Looking for bats in the disused practice rugby pitch
From the Crag we made our way back to the picnic area, along Crag Lane and around the disused rugby pitch, where we spotted more bats. Finally, we went down to the cricket pavilion before returning to the Village Green car park at about 9.10 pm.
On our journey through the woods we detected four different species of bats: pipistrelle; soprano pipistrelle; Nathusius’s pipistrelle; and noctule, our largest species. Nathusius’s pipistrelle is a surprise: the Bat Conservation Trust say that Nathusius’s pipistrelle is a rare bat in the UK though its numbers have increased in recent years.
All in all it was a very enjoyable and exciting evening, and we are grateful to David Preston and Leeds City Council for making it possible – and grateful to all our enthusiastic participants.
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 – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Our next events
Have a look at our Home Page for details of our next work party
Our next educational event will be on Sunday the 29th September 2024 from 2 pm to 4 pm when local naturalist Steve Joul will be leading a fungal foray. Please note, this is not an event for collecting mushrooms to eat, but an opportunity to learn about the many species of fungi to be found in Adel Woods.
Steve Joul guiding a group in the orchid (or cricket) meadow in June 2024
Friends of Adel Woods have been looking after the orchid (also known as the cricket meadow) since 2014. It is home to many beautiful common spotted orchids which flower in July each year, as well as other wild flowers.
The northern boundary of the orchid meadow on 15th August 2024
To keep it in good condition, we need to mow it in August each year and rake off the mowings. As you can see in the photograph above taken today, by August, it is in a pretty unruly state.
Today, your correspondent and David Preston, Parks and Countryside Ranger, spent the morning mowing the meadow – your correspondent using a scythe, and David using a brush cutter – so that Friends of Adel Woods can rake off the mowings in two days time, on Sunday. It was a beautiful morning.
In the course of our work, David came across a number of toads in the vegetation including the little toadlet in the photograph above, and the mature toad in the photograph below.
We worked from 9 till 12.45 in which time your correspondent had scythed the area shown in the photograph below (the same area shown in the second photograph above)…
The northern boundary of the orchid meadow after a morning’s scything
…and David had mown with the brush cutter a much larger area as shown in the photograph above.
You can find out more about the meadow by clicking here
On the way home, your correspondent went to have a look at Adel Moor – another area where Friends of Adel Woods have done a lot of work over the last fifteen years – and it was looking magnificent!
Adel Moor today
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 – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Our next events
Our next work party is on Sunday the 18th August 2024 when we will be litterpicking and working on the orchid meadow.
Our next educational event will be on Wednesday the 28th August 2024 from 7.15 to 9 pm when David Preston will be leading a bat walk.
The Buck Stone is a local landmark from which the local housing estate gets its name. It has appeared on local maps for at least two hundred years. Until about twenty years ago it was a place where children could play, and where you could sit and enjoy nature, but over the years it became concealed under the spreading branches of an oak tree.
In 2012, responding to requests from local residents, Friends of Adel Woods restored it to its former glory, and we have carried out further maintenance work in the years since. You can find out more in our entries for 18th March 2012 and the 30th March 2012.
As you can see from the photograph below taken on the 6th July 2024, nature moves in quickly! So today it was time to do some further tidying up!
The Buck Stone on 6th July 2024
If you don’t know where the Buck Stone is, it is in Adel Woods just behind the houses on Buck Stone Avenue. About twenty yards from the junction with Buck Stone Way, there is a ginnel marked by a public footpath sign between two bungalows. Go down the ginnel and follow the path to your right, and you will find the Buck Stone.
A small but international group of us met in Buck Stone Avenue at 10 am. International because one of our number, Jen, a former stalwart of Friends of Adel Woods, had flown in from her home in Australia, just to help Friends of Adel Woods!
As can be seen in the photographs, the bracken and Himalayan balsam surrounding the Buck Stone and on either side of the path was very thick and as much as eight to ten feet tall. We started by clearing bracken and Himalayan balsam from around the Buck Stone and then cleared it from the paths. Disappointingly, a dog owner had used a small area in front of the Buck Stone as a dog toilet, so we had to start work by removing as much as we could and covering the rest with a layer of bracken and balsam.
Deep among the Himalayan balsam we found this perfect nest – no longer in use, so we assume that its occupants had successfully fledged. It was a very small nest – the inside of the cup was about 5-6 cm across – so our guess is that it was a robin’s nest. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let us know!
The path running along the back of the houses on Buck Stone Avenue had been overgrown until it was almost invisible. We opened it up again as can be seen in the following photographs.
Looking eastwards along the path behind Buck Stone Avenue on the 6th JulyThe same path at 11.44 on the 20th July
Thank you to all our wonderful volunteers for the work they did this morning – and to Jen for joining us from Australia!
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 – you should be able to see a comment button at the bottom of this page.
Our next events
Our next work party is on Sunday the 18th August 2024 when we will be litterpicking and working on our orchid meadow (also known as the cricket meadow).
Our next educational event will be on Wednesday the 28th August 2024 from 7.15 to 9 pm when our local countryside ranger, David Preston, will be leading a bat walk.
Further details will be given on our homepage and sent out via our mailing list.
At 2.00 pm this afternoon, about twenty of us met up with Steve Joul in Alwoodley Village Green car park for an enjoyable and educational stroll through Adel Woods. Steve is a very knowledgable local naturalist and a member of the committee of Friends of Adel Woods. He has many years of experience of working in Adel Woods and studying their flora and fauna.
This was a talk which Steve initially arranged with Alwoodley 2030 with the support of Friends of Adel Woods. Alwoodley 2030 is a community-driven initiative to make Alwoodley zero carbon, nature positive and socially just by 2030.
Examining bark on a tree in Alwoodley Plantation
Having given a brief introductory talk about the ecology of the area and the variety of habitats in Adel Woods, Steve led us into Crag Lane and then to the right into Alwoodley Plantation – an area where there are a number of Scots Pine, beech and larch trees, presumably planted for commercial purposes: the main species of trees to be found elsewhere in Adel Woods are holly, birch, oak and sycamore.
The former quarry in Alwoodley Plantation
Within Adel Woods there are many outcrops of rock and Steve took us to have a look at a former quarry within the plantation.
The flowers of one of the many brambles or blackberry plants in Adel Woods
From there we went to have a look at our very own scheduled monument within Adel Woods- a Romano-British carving of a human figure on an outcrop of rock. It is in fact the only known example of Romano-British rock carving in West Yorkshire. The figure is holding a shield and spear and it is believed, from the style of the carving, to represent the Celtic deity Cocidius, a warrior god worshipped in northern England a the time of the Romans.
Inspecting the carving of Cocidius
If you look very carefully to the right of our young explorer’s head you can see a carved head, shoulder and a shield.
From there we went to look at Alwoodley or Adel Crag.
Alwoodley Crag (also known as Adel Crag)
In a 1963 interview, the sculptor Henry Moore said that the landscapes that most influenced his work were the slag heaps of Castleford and Adel Rock (ie Adel Crag). For more information, have a look at this article on the website of the Tate Art Gallery: tate.org.uk.
From Adel Crag we walked down to the orchid or cricket meadow, home for a couple of thousand common spotted orchids – though unfortunately they were difficult to see from a distance due to the height of the grass.
Steve has led Friends of Adel Woods in doing a lot of work to preserve the meadow over the last ten years – see 12th August 2023
Common spotted orchids in the orchid or cricket meadow on the 30th June 2024
Finally, we walked down to have a look at Adel Pond, breeding ground for many frogs and palmate newts.
In the last fourteen years, each Autumn Friends of Adel Woods have dredged the pond and cleared ditches around it, initially under Steve’s leadership, and now with our new local ranger, David Preston.
Steve explains the history of Adel PondAdel Pond on 30th June 2024
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 is on Saturday the 20th July 2024 when we will be litterpicking and clearing scrub and bracken from around the Buck Stone.
Our next educational event will be on Sunday the 21st July 2024 from 2 to 4 pm when Steve Joul will be leading a stream and pond Safari.
Further details are given on our homepage and will be sent out via our mailing list.
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 