Six of us met Ranger Al in the Lifeboat Road carpark. The forecast said cloudy but there wasn’t a cloud in sight so we slapped on the sun cream just in case it stayed like that.
We drove from the public carpark to get closer to the worksite which was on land south of Lifeboat Road recently given to the NT to manage by Sefton Council. We went through an automatic gate into a very exclusive housing estate with a very large new manor house which would rival several NT stately homes!
The task was chopping down White and Grey Poplar saplings to reduce the vegetation in the area and allow for more sand dunes. The saplings spread along root systems, so are clones:
They plan to have contractors in to take out the big trees ...
... but the smaller trees will grow rapidly when the larger tress are removed, so needed to be nipped in the bud.
Al explained that Formby has about 10% of the country's entire population of Black Poplar, which we were leaving alone. They have done genetic testing and the 800 mature black poplar trees in Formby are all clones from just two trees! The black poplar is an endangered species and most of the trees are male.
During the day we had a walk over to “Devils hole”, an area of shifting sand dunes deep enough to have a pond at the bottom – although it has been so dry recently there wasn’t much water in it.
Ariel view when there was more water about:
We slowly worked our way around a patch of established woodland cutting down the smaller poplars and stacking the brash in the trailer. The brash will get used for dead hedging to make a stockproof fence to help control the longhorn cattle they hope to have grazing on the land in the winter.
The day continued warm, but with an onshore breeze it wasn’t too bad. We managed to clear a long strip beside the wood, but there is still plenty of work left for the local group to do cutting the rest of the poplars down.
Jenny
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