Old Spring Wood: 13-06-2017

Pateley Bridge Pigeon Post

Quest for a bracken free woodland

By A. Hack - roving reporter

This week brought 13 NCVs to beautiful Old Spring Wood, above Summerbridge, to take part in the annual bracken bashing fest that (they hope) benefits the ancient woodland flora. This thug of the botanical world blankets great swathes of the woodland floor at this time of year and needs to be taught a lesson. 

The nature of the problem

Ideally plants would be dug up, roots and all. However - as NCVs wanted to finish this year's job before 2020 and get home in time for tea - the plan was to bruise the stems as usual (rather than cutting them). This way the NCVs hope that the plants will gradually weaken and give up the ghost. 

Here's one plant that has been correctly bashed.

The 'after bashing' picture does not look so different to the 'before bashing' shot

but at least the NCVs know that the job has been done. 

As the team moved through the site they were pleased to see a notable improvement in both the upper and lower sections of the wood. It appeared that years of hard work has started to pay off (although they've still some way to go to suppress the bracken plants' enthusiasm for life in the more sunlit glades). 

 The bashers moved steadily forwards wielding 

their hi-tech equipment to good effect.

 Various holes had to be avoided...

...as had ferns, bluebells, a bird's nest, day moths and fox gloves.

A new NCV joined the team this week - Andrew is an ecological consultant, so just the man to help them in their quest. Something else that helped was an almost constant supply of no fewer than three different kinds of cake. Thanks for this wonderful confectionery go to Alwin - wife of one of the NCVs - who spent the previous day slaving in the kitchen to provide something tasty to celebrate Tony's birthday. 

Three of the seemingly infinite number of cake boxes.

Morning coffee and cake at the top of the wood.

Lunchtime cake at the bottom of the wood...

... with Ros K. doing her Simon Rattle impersonation 
from her little log pedestal.

 Afternoon tea and cake back at the cars.

By this point Alistair was struggling to fit any more cake in.

By the time everyone decided that they had had enough and began the long trek up the hillside to the cars, large areas of the wood had been covered. There are, however, large areas still to be done on their return visit at some point this summer.

Onward and upward chaps!