Hackfall Woods: 07-02-2017

The months are passing quickly and the end of winter marches on. The first Tuesday in February marked yet another monthly visit to Hackfall. Here we continued clearing vistas and maintaining water features. At Ellington Banks last week we were working on a magnesian limestone site of importance for nature conservation (SINC). Hackfall is also a magnesian limestone area but is a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) which means it has even greater levels of protection by law.

(I hope that you are keeping up with all this as there will be a test set at the end of the year and any readers failing to meet the required level of acronym competence will be set additional homework! Click on the links above to find out the difference between the two kinds of areas.)

The photos below show the kinds of things the 19 NCVs got up to this week.

The Great Lord James spaketh unto the hoards.

"And Lo. We shall go forth into the wood and create order out of chaos."

Yes - your eyes did not play tricks on you in the previous photo.
Hangman Osian loomed larger than life.

Now - I wonder what is dangling
 from Osian's rope?

Daring Dave dices with death above Fountains pond.
Let's hope Osian's knot tying skills are up to scratch!

Well you seem to have cleared the vegetation 
encroaching on the view from Lovers' Leap Dave. 
Pity about the mist spoiling the view!

Meanwhile up on the path to the car park a team were 
busy snipping at this prickly mass of brambles. 

Student Tom made sure that the plants were cut off at ground level...

...whilst Angela took an overhanging hawthorn to task at a higher level.

By coffee time the brambles had almost gone.

If Angela's hat had slipped any further 
down we'd have had three wise monkeys.

Unfortunately we came across a lot of dog poo bags 
in amongst the vegetation and gathered them up to take away. 
Why do people do this?
Tony has written a poem about this horrible problem - 
I'm sure you'll enjoy reading it HERE.

On the way to the next area that needed work we discovered 
that Big Foot had got there before us.
Or was it a piece of Dover Sole? Or a riss-sole?
Or a Beatles album?

Will decided to play some soul music on his improvised saxophone.

Let's prune this holly as we go.

Ros K. improvises and makes a broom 
 from twigs to sweep the steps.

These fungi look like something from inside the dog poo bags!

On to the other pond at the very end of the woods - 
here the bank was checked for brambles.

Tom and Ros E. start damming the gap in the pond 
wall with stones and mud to stop it overflowing.

 That should just about do it Tom .

Yes - that looks good.

Apologies to:

a) the team that slaved hard dredging the feeder pond to the weaping rock. The one photo I have does not seem to be able to be downloaded from the text message inbox on my phone.

b) the team that cleared the view from Turner's bench to the river. No photos are available but we know that you did a good job!!

Ros E.