Ellington Banks: 05-03-2019

Pancakes? No chance!

It may have been Pancake Tuesday today but there were no frying pans being used at Ellington Banks today - only loppers and bow saws. The window of opportunity for removing encroaching scrub  is fast closing, so the NCVs needed to get a wiggle on and have a final go at the unwanted alder, willow and hazel saplings threatening to engulf the magnesian limestone grassland.

The task was a bit daunting on arrival.

But needless to say everyone just got stuck in.

 Brash piles started on our last visit got added to....

...and any nice straight poles were set to one side for transporting to 
Summerbridge nature reserve for our next training day.

Nice bit of 'threading' there Paul.

The cleaned up poles were carried off to Liz's trailer.

Dave used one of the poles to fight off a winged dragon 
that appeared out of the clouds.....

...and Andrew braved the depths of the crocodile infested swamp
to ensure that not a single sapling was left standing.

Brash was being generated by the ton 
and something more drastic had to be done.

Osian stepped up to the plate and laid the foundations for a fire.

With willing brash carriers like Andy to assist....

...he soon had a roaring blaze going.
The brash started to disappear very quickly after that.

Everyone congregated on the natural roadside bench for breaks.

By coffee time it was clear that we probably 
had just about all the poles we needed.

At lunchtime this was noticed on a post. 
Can you guess what it is?
(Answer at the bottom of the blog.)

Lunch over, Liz got busy with her chain saw 
on a couple of unwanted birch trees.

In a bid to ensure that the fire would start to die down before everyone left for home, 
John Black (the MOD ecologist) showed a small group of NCVs how 
to create a 'windrow' (a dead hedge to the uninitiated).

Within no time at all the group were on the case....

 ...and a few carefully placed twigs grew into a mighty hedge.

 Paul knocked in some stakes to steady the structure...

...and then - there it was. Complete.(apart from a little bit of tidying up.)
This will serve as a barrier and as a habitat pile at the same time. 
Much quicker to construct than a brash pile too.
John awarded the group a 10/10 - not bad for a first attempt!

 By 2:40pm, when the group knocked off, the site was
 looking a good deal clearer than when we first arrived.

And the fire was well on the way to being safe to leave.

Well done Tom - clearing your boots of anything untoward!

So - what was that stuff on the post???

It was the remains of frogspawn (seen here in one of the many small ponds in the area) 

that had been eaten by a magpie who,according to Liz,  

only liked to eat the whites - not the yolks!!

Apparently they regurgitate the indigestible tadpoles and leave them on posts.

Poor old taddies!