Summer Scything and Path Clearing

This post covers two work parties and the different activities that took place at them.

The first work party was held on Wednesday July 22nd and there were only two volunteers - Eric and Peter.

I was away for this work party so the photos were taken by Eric. They worked on the path at the top of the hill leading to the pylon.

It had narrowed considerably and was close to being blocked.

They put in a lot of hard work in difficult working conditions because of the heat and as can be seen in this photo opened up the path considerably.

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The second work party was held on Sunday August 9th and there were eight volunteers - Eric,  Peter, Cathy, Aidan, Andy, Jim, Luke and me.

We had three jobs to do. Carry on the path clearing that Peter and Eric did last time, Open up the path alongside the Sort It centre from the glade onwards and clear/open up the Paddock area.

Andy and Eric dealt with the path clearing near the pylon

Before ...

... and after. 

Before ...

... and after.

Before ...

... and after. 

As you can see from the photos above they did a good job dealing with dry grass and hot weather.

Meanwhile, the rest of us went to the path alongside the Sort It centre. From the glade onwards

it had become a bit overgrown and needed to be widened.

Peter and Jim made a start at the glade end of the path, 

Cathy and Luke took on the centre section,

and Aidan went further along to work back towards the others. I took the photos and began raking up the stuff they were cutting down.

Good progress was being made ...

... with Luke and Cathy clearing out this section quite quickly.

As you can see in this photo.

Aiden and Jim had been doing a great job working at the other end ...

... and before long the clearing had been done so we had a break from the heat.

We then moved on to the third job of clearing the Paddock. This always seems like a never ending job, as you will know if you have read previous blog posts, and this time was no exception as you can see from the following two photos.

These were taken by the stile at the post 12 entrance.

We made a good start on the left hand side and reached the fence next to the stream ...

... then carried on further down that side. 

Unfortunately we then discovered that we were not alone. There was a wasp nest on the other side and one of the volunteers was stung. We have had this problem in the past and found that the best thing is to get away from the vicinity of the nest and leave them alone. This means that clearing this area will have to wait until the wasps have gone. One of the volunteers made some warning signs the following day and put them up by the entrances to the Paddock.

Considering the hot weather we had a lot of support today and the volunteers put in a lot of hard work. It was a shame that we were hampered by the wasps, but they have to live somewhere and we shouldn't begrudge them a home.

Clearing Paths

The first scheduled work party in July was held on Sunday 12th. This was in the middle of the fourth heat wave this year with temperatures often above 30 deg C so rather than cancel it as we did back in June, we started the session early at 9.30am when it was cooler then finished around 11.15am. We decided to clear the valley path near post 10, where we get primroses and bluebells in the spring. The path has narrowed considerably because of overhanging vegetation - mainly bracken. Then if there was time we could clear the path from the top of the valley along to post 6.

This was the path looking uphill. You can see the narrowing caused by the overhanging bracken

This is looking back downhill from the far end end in the previous photo.

Six volunteers turned up and we set about scything down the bracken.

Peter is dealing with the upper part of the slope.

Aiden and Luke are clearing the lower section while Cathy is moving the cut bracken away.

It wasn't long before the bracken was gone and the path restored. 

We had cleared it in good time and were all OK to continue so we moved up to the top of the path to deal with the narrow path between the viewpoint and post 6 at the top of the steps.

This is the path looking from the viewpoint end, near post 8 ....

... and this is looking back from the post 6 end.

Andy is making good progress ...

... and joined by Peter, Luke, Aiden and Cathy soon had the path opened up.

The path is now clear and hot weather will hold back growth so it may stay open for some time.

Despite the hot weather the volunteers did a splendid job today and achieved a lot.

A Bridge Too Far?

The second work party for June should have been Wed of last week. That was in the middle of the heat wave so we postponed it and held it yesterday the 1st July.

During the last few weeks the vegetation in Filnore has grown a lot and is beginning to close off some of the paths so our task yesterday was to open up the paths either side of the bridge near post 5 in the far corner of the woodland.

This is the path that coming from the meadow at the top of the pylon field to the bridge. You can see how narrow the space is.

There were only three of us - Eric, Peter and me so we got on with the clearing work.

We made a start by scything the edges

Then cut down the remaining grass and brambles to make the path wider.

Leaving a path down the steps giving good access to the bridge.

Over the bridge then to deal with the path up to post 6. This path is also getting choked with vegetation and would soon become impassable if we leave it as it is.

We set up a little base to work from, then had a go at the edges like we did on the other side of the bridge.

We cut down a considerable amount of material ...

... but the resulting clear wide path made the effort worthwhile.

On the way to the bridge paths we walked up the pylon field and through the meadow. There were lots of butterflies flying around. This is a good time to see them as the 'resident' ones like the Marbled White, the Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper and Ringlet are currently flying. We also saw some visiting ones like the Red Admiral and Painted Lady. Here are photos of some of them.

Marbled White (Melanargia galathea)

Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina)

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)

Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

We had a good day out in the fine weather and achieved what we set out to do with only three volunteers. We were all quite tired by the end but were happy with the work we did.

Scything the Welcome Area - Again!

This post covers the last three work parties. The first one was on Sunday 10th May when four volunteers scythed the welcome area. I was away on that day and no photos were taken but the results would have been very similar to the main theme of this post. The following work party was scheduled for Wednesday 27th May but we had to cancel it because we were in a heat wave and working in such high temperatures would have been dangerous. Then on Sunday 14th June working conditions were OK and we got back to work.

In the following two photos you can see that the welcome area grass scythed a month before has grown back and needs doing again ... 

... along with the path alongside the allotments boundary.

Aiden started clearing around the edge of the welcome area where there is a considerable amount of encroaching vegetation ...

... while Peter, Eric and me started on the grass.

Meanwhile Jim, Kathy and Andy got on with the path by the allotments. The aim here was to clear away enough grass to create a wide enough path for walkers and other users. Clearing all the grass is too big a task using manual tools - the S Glos mowers haven't come yet to do the major mowing tasks!

We had a mid morning break ...

... then got back to work. Peter loading yet another barrow with grass cuttings while Andy, Jim and Luke are cutting and raking up some more for him.

We left a small area of the welcome area uncut to provide some shelter and cover for our small furry visitors, and somewhere for the airborne ones to land and get some sun, and the path by the allotments is now much easier to walk along.

A good morning's work on a pleasant day.