Last week thirteen students from the University of the West of England volunteered to work in Filnore Woods as part of their WOW week. They are all 1st Year Occupational Therapy students and at this time of year they have a week called Widening Occupations Week - WOW, during which they do volunteering work in the wider community as part of their course.
We'd had lots of rain over the previous few days so much of the woodland was very wet and muddy. This restricted the kind of work we could do on safety grounds but clearing brambles was OK. We do this kind of work because brambles are invasive and soon spread over a considerable area if left. However, we don't clear them completely because they do provide a habitat for small birds such as long tailed tits who can nest in them out of the reach of predators. We stop this kind of clearance in Feb/March though, because this is the time that nest building can start, so this was a good time to get the loppers out and get on with it.
This path near the eastern border of the woods leads from the Jubilee Way up the slope towards post 7 in the trees. As you can see there are brambles on both sides almost covering the path higher up. We are going to leave most of the brambles to the right for the birds and clear the left hand ones.
We began at the bottom of the slope and widened the start of the path to open the junction with the Jubilee Path. This was the right hand patch of brambles but we didn't remove very much, just enough to give better access to the slope.
Then we went about half way up the slope and tackled the brambles near the beech trees. This is where the thickest patches are.
The ground is better drained in this area and the footing better so we were able to make some use of slashers - long blades on the end of a pole, but very carefully and in a controlled manner.
Once the path edges were open we could begin to remove the bulk of the brambles from the ground between the path and the boundary fence. There were lots and lots of them and they are tough to cut down but the students kept going until it was time to finish and we left the remaining brambles for the second set of volunteers arriving the next day.
Just enough time left to make a 'WOW' sign using loppers!
The second group came along on the following day and carried on with the clearing work started by the others.
They worked their way across the slope ...
... then split into two section, one going uphill and the other going down.
After cutting down the brambles there's still plenty to do. The bits of cut bramble, called 'arisings', have to be raked up and moved to a pile. Then all the little bits left on the ground cleaned up to leave a tidy surface.
Both of these groups were wonderful young people who were a pleasure to work with and a tremendous help to the woodland.
