Felling silver birch at Thurstaston Common on Sunday 29th November 2015

On a wet and windy day, seven of us made the journey to the Wirral meeting Phil, the Ranger at Thurstaston, in the Royden Park car park. Five of us had travelled over in one car from Styal. Hannah and Jean went straight there. Three Merseyside Volunteers also met up there.

We walked from the car park into the area we were to be working. We were asked to cut down the smaller trees that we could see, mainly silver birch, so that the area could return to heathland. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest(SSSI) and it is hoped that once the tree's have been removed that it will return to a shrubland habitat, encouraging the growth of bilberries, gorse and heathers, and sightings of adders, common lizards and grass snakes.

Although we had intended to have a fire to burn the tree's that we cut down, the wind was so strong that it wasn't safe to. Instead we made piles of the tree's so they could be removed at a later date.

the area we were working in

As we worked, it got windier and windier and darker as the rain approached. We stopped for a mid-morning break but, by lunchtime, we decided that it was too dangerous to stay in the wooded area in such high winds, so we took our packed lunches over to the car park area and ate our lunch sitting on one of the benches before returning home.

It was a shame that we only had a short day. Phil was really grateful for what we'd achieved in a few hours. We heard from a some dog walkers that a couple of tree's had blown down during the morning so we knew it wasn't worth the risk to stay any longer. Hopefully our next visit to Thurstaston will be a longer one!

 

MNTV having lunch before returning home