Note sent out by Jane after the event nicely sums up the great success of this work party.
Thanks for turning out in great number, yesterday, on what was a glorious if chilly morning.
It was most enjoyable morning working with you all. It felt like good, spontaneous, team work, with 19 of us ‘friends’ and six TCV members.
I was just amazed at how much we got done. I never thought we’d clear all that brash and logs to the outer perimeter of the Cricket Scrub, as we did. It was hard labour to move all that stuff and some skill went into creating the dead hedges. There were several of us ‘friends’ with previous or current TCV experience, which helped hugely, and ‘teams’ developed to tackle different areas. It was great having TCV volunteers with their skills. I think we all worked well as a team under the guidance of Gerry – he knew what was needed and set us all off on our various fronts.
The so-named Cricket Scrub became canopy woodland with self-sewn trees, and, under Gerry’s guidance we are attempting to return it to a scrubby habitat, so that it remains inviting to birds, particularly migrating warblers such as the spotted flycatcher (pictured in the Mail Chimp).
The next stage will be to plant some hawthorns within the glade created, to provide the low-bush scrubby habitat needed. This will all need maintenance so no doubt we will return to the Scrub once or twice a year.
Background to this work party:
The Cricket Scrub is an area of bushes and trees between the main football pitch and the old racetrack.
Scrub is a valuable habitat in its own right. It has its own assemblage of plants, birds and insects. It should be a mix of dense shrubby material interspersed with open, sunny glades. In the park, we have been losing our scrub over the last few years, primarily as the trees grow and create woodland, so we have been losing an important component of our biodiversity. In the Cricket Scrub some of the tree cover has now been removed.
On Tuesday we moved the cut branches to the edge of the scrub so that in due course we can plant hawthorn and blackthorn to improve the scrub.
More pictures on this link.
