20090425 WLA Cleaning and Maintenance with Tim

A good sunny day and with Tim help we called around the Wild Life Area. The works on the abutting kick-about field (aka "Sport Ground") have just finished and the contractor have removed, true to their words, nearly all of the rubbish their building activities have generated.

This did not of course included the usual, accumulating detritus that this little patch of land seems able so easily to accumulate.

We therefore took the occasion to rake some of it away.

Although the west side has been drastically cut down in the previous BBC sponsored remodelling of the area, some more has been trimmed but partly due to the co-operation of the contractors doing the works, some of the worse possibility have been avoided.In fact some of the stumps are already regenerating. As many as the sapling left from the BBC Breathing Space program has been preserve, and actually this give them a slight chance to grow enough to survive.Especially the hazels should benefit. However how verdant ans lash this little oasis may be, the ground under our feet is quite unforgiving. It is made of mostly artificial detritus, and an impermeable pan closes the soil horizon at about 50 cm depth.So only some special plants or the lucky ones if they are in a more favourable spot have the chance to grow and beat the competing flora.

We'll see...

Tim and I are not that concerned by all of it at the moment. More mundane and pragmatic tasks are our fare for the moment (a quick repair to the waddle hedge is becoming a routine, the front of the WLA is however recovering nicely from the extensive alteration of the previous season).

We are happy with the result of our efforts and console ourself with a little treasure trove, finding a beautiful Bluebell (Endymion non-scriptus) and some Carabidae ground beetles (Pterostichus niger) [ however I missed the interesting myriapod next to it !! ].