22nd April 2012 Work Party

dynamic - By fosh_admin on Saturday, April 28, 2012 - 16:59

The day started off with so much promise, bright, with blue skies, and as is the case in April the weather changes so fast, and we certainly had a variety of conditions, including hail at one point.

We had another successful work party with 9 volunteers and we accomplished a considerable amount. We planted 3 well-established oaks, which had been kindly donated; these were grown from acorns from Sharphill, by a regular visitor to the wood. We installed 25 new bird boxes near the southern end. These are probably too late for most species this season, but perhaps some warblers might use them. By putting them up now it will give them time to weather and bed in for next season.

Last summer we did a considerable amount of path edging towards the southern end of the main path, and earlier this year we had done a stretch towards the middle. Today we succeeded in linking the two sections together with about 33m of new edging. We spread more wood chip on the central path, although the recent rainfall has led to a couple of mini-streams crossing the path in places.

Two of the volunteers circumnavigated the wood checking canes and guards on recently planted whips, replacing or adjusting as necessary. Other plants are encroaching on the young whips, and although a little bit of clearing was done, obviously this will be a major task for the next couple of work parties. Finally, the gap in the hedge at the southern end was blocked (again).

Of course, there was plenty of bird song, in particular chiffchaff, blackcap, dunnock, wren, song thrush, chaffinch and the inevitable laughing green woodpecker.