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This summer partly due to the rains and better maintenance the Wild Life Area and the Wild Life hedge (thanks to Julian) have thrived with relatively less damage that the previous years.
Still there have been some 30% of the area trampled, some fired and vegetation damage, mostly due to local youngsters trying again to carve out encampments, play balls retrievals and dumping of rubbish and fly-tipping (mostly on the king lake side).
However the unusually wet season and the increased maintenance have somehow reduced these destructive tendencies to a lower level that previous seasons.
Nonetheless the fox population has plunged to two yearling, and the birds, especially sparrows have had a poor reproductive cycle.
The future is by not any means assured so the best things we can do is try to help along and hope for the best.
We downed our tools and started looking around.
Peter (the Wildman of Kinglake) is at hand and apart for some cleansing we decide that we'll help our beloved Oak sapling to get rid of some of bindweed and Wormwood that chocking the metal cage enclosure that protect the young trunk.
This is very important because the soil on which the sapling rest is exceptionally poor, rest on the unmoved foundations of demolished building that act a and there is a rock substrate (the actual term is regolith or "C horizon") that also act as a water barrier forming a hardpan layer with very little drainage. The "soil" as it is collected on top is mainly made by human derived detritus held together by hyphae and organic conglomerates, poor in nitrogen and potassium but rich in a number of contaminants and poisonous heavy metals. Relatively few species have enough vigour to survive this environment. For instance of the 200 saplings and cuttings planted during the BBC "Breathing Space" programme more that 95% have perished and an even higher percentage of the many seeds planted have failed to sprout or to produce fertile plants. So we are all naturally very worried about our little baby Oak.
One of the main way to help its survival (and last year it was sick) is to try to have its root form the right kind of mycorrhizae but with a lot of faster growing ruderals taking advantage of the protection of the trunk guard there is the risk that the mycorrhizae that form are the wrong ones for the sapling. So some help is needed.
Pete is at hand to asses the wok to be done: Eventually we delicately remove the bindweed and one by one also the ruderals that have entrenched themselves in the wire mesh of the trunk guard.A little cleaning in the surrounding area would also not go amiss and at the end all if fine again.
The Oak look better than the last year (we fed the saplings some slow-release fertiliser that seems has help going over some of the difficulties the young plant had last year.
Let's hope that our little nature wonder will survive but there are for sure still plenty of risks ahead.
Still much still to do for the rest of the area. We trim the vegetation along the path and try remove some of the brances broken from the bushes and used for construe a kid den (still with fires -thank God- it has been raining!!)
Than the usual never ending collection of rubbish. but at the end we were satisfied. The area is actually quite cool in the hot day and it is a pleasure to seat and take a breather on the central front "square".
At the end we got at least some of the detritus:
Pete can now indulge in his newfangled passion for macro photography and hang about (rather gloomily) with its camera.
Although the season has been less warm than average still a lot of fruits and berries are now maturing. Like an abundant crop of the local elderberry.
also there will a good crop or dog rose. It still need some more sunshine. Baddlia still flower in abundance and the burdock is seedling.
Plenty od insect life all around us. Garden spiders are abundant (always a good sign) and a beautiful specimen of a Hornet-Mimic Hoverfly (Volucella zonaria )
plus the usual suspects keeping us company. Crows performing and the again elusive camera shy European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) and Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus)
even if the latter was on the nearby Snowberry (Symphoricarpos alba) bushes.
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