Planting wildflower plugs at Styal on Sunday 29th August 2021 (Bank holiday weekend)

After a month of whacking bracken and pulling up Himalayan Balsam, nine of us joined Vicky at Styal to do some wildflower planting. The fields we worked in had been part of a dairy farm but for the last 20 years have been grazed by longhorn cattle belonging to the Bollin Valley Partnership. The grazing has encouraged the spread of wildflowers but some species such as birds foot trefoil, common cats ear, yarrow, common knapweed, ox-eye daisy and self heal are not present. Funded by DEFRA's Green Recovery Project, Vicky bought a total of 10,000 plugs of these species, with the aim of increasing biodiversity around the Styal Estate.

Vicky brought trays of flower plugs to the fields where we were working using her quad bike.

A group had already planted about 1,000 plugs earlier in the week so after dividing the field into four sections we started filling in the gaps with these additional species.

You might think a ‘wild’ flower can just look after itself, but it still needs a good start.

So for each plug we dug a hole a spade deep and square, turned the sod over, spaded the soil to loosen it, then planted the plug. This gives the plant moist soil to grow in and space to establish itself so it can compete with the grass. 

Text from Jean.

Photo's from Jean and Adrian.

Bracken Bashing at Hardcastle Crags on Sunday 22nd Aug 2021

Seven of us met James, the Area Ranger for Hardcastle Crags and East Riddlesden Hall, at 10am at the old Estate Offices.

He took us to the tool store and we helped put together some Scythes and adjust them so they were comfortable to hold. He demonstrated how to use them and showed us how to sharpen them when they went a bit blunt. We also collected some rakes and a slasher.

Getting the tools ready before we started

During the day, we worked in 3 different area's slashing the bracken, raking it up and then throwing it onto existing piles of rotting bracken from previous Bashes. This was being done to help the fungi, in particular the Waxcaps, have a better chance of survival.  

Follow this link to find out more about the fungi at Hardcastle Crags: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardcastle-crags/features/grassland-fungi-project

The weather was bizarre during the day, changing between showers and rain, to very hot sun and an extremely humid environment - it was waterproofs off, on, off, on, during the day.

A number of us saw frogs hopping around in the undergrowth getting out of our way, and some of the group saw a rabbit make a quick exit.

One of the frogs we saw

We'd left our lunch in our cars so went back to Hollin Hall just before midday for a combined morning break and lunch. James found enough chairs for us to sit on, a real luxury on a workday:-)

It was a challenging day due to the weather and the walking we did, but we felt good that we'd helped James get a job ticked off his to-do list:-)

Thistle thrashing at Hayfield on Sunday 15th August 2021

Eight of us met with Iain, the National Trust ranger for Hayfield, at Sett Valley car park before moving off and leaving some cars by the Sportsman pub and then car sharing the rest of the way to South Head farm. This was due to limited parking and rough roads.

The farm is still empty and is in desperate need of work to make it habitable again. Maybe a job for MNTV!

We worked in several fields around the farm clearing thistles, a lot had already been cut by the farmer with a tractor but there were obviously areas he couldn't get to, plus quite a lot had been flattened by the tyres so these had to be dealt with as well as new growth. We finished off by clearing the farm garden which itself had been overrun by thistles.

We were lucky with the weather; we had a light shower just after lunch but it saved the worst until we were getting our gear together to return to the cars.

Thanks to Iain and my colleagues for a lovely day,

Christine 

Photo's from Christine & Andy, and Adrian.

Cancelled - Himalayan balsam pulling at Styal on Sunday 8th August 2021 - cancelled due to the weather!

We were due to work with Ranger Stu today in Chapel Woods, pulling up Himalayan balsam before the flower heads turned to seed and popped, spreading the seeds far and wide, ready to produce more plants next year.

Eight of us turned up to meet Stu in the car park at Quarry Bank Mill, but it was raining! 

As thunderstorm was forecast and some of the roads were flooded, it was decided that the workday should be cancelled.

However, before people returned home, Jenny distributed her home-baked cake to all those who'd made the effort to turn up:-)

Keeping in touch - edition 10

Dear All

Although we are now coming out of lockdown I wanted to send you a wee email with a few points from us and from properties we work at.

Firstly, as a reminder we have a weekend organised for your delight ... Summer in Snowdonia on 3-5 September.  It's always been a popular weekend and weather has always been good to us.  Until 2013 we went at the end of October to help marshall the Snowdonia Marathon, where it always rained, but when the National Trust stopped organising it we stopped going.  That was until 2015 when we realised that they may have stopped organising it but why should we stop going to a beautiful part of the world?  This is when our annual visits to the area started.  Sometimes it was spring, sometimes summer.  Last year should have been Christmas in Cymru, but alas Covid put a stop to that.  This year with restrictions lifting and with people now able to stay over at people's houses or go on holiday we are taking our first tentative steps back to residential weekends.  Daniel recently sent out an email advertising the weekend and we currently have 4 definites and 1 maybe. Don't forget if you are wanting to go please email in by 14th August so we can confirm numbers.  Want to find out more about what we get up to in Snowdonia?http://mntv.blogspot.com/search/label/Snowdonia

Secondly, for those of you who have not yet been on a workday this year or if you have never been on one please see the below photo collage (also attached) to give yourselves an idea of the fun and work that we get up to on a workday.  If you have any photos of MNTV workdays you want to share then please send them in via email to info@mntv.org.uk

Thirdly, we have had an email from Chris at Formby with some information about Formby's upcoming woodland management plan.  He says "we've been working on it over the last six months and are really excited to start sharing with the community.  In collaboration with wildlife and woodland management experts such as Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Natural England and the Forestry Commission we've developed a plan which we are really proud of, focusing on benefits for both people and nature.  Over the month of August, we'll be running walks and talks in the woodland as well as community drop-in sessions at the Formby Library.  However, as one of our key stakeholders and interested parties, we would like to offer you guys the opportunity to learn more about the plan.  Ensuring that the community and stakeholders such as yourselves understand our ambitions, and the interventions we are proposing to take to achieve these, is incredibly important to us, so we would love to share this with you.

The key messages to be taken from our plan are the following:

- Focus on improving the health, species diversity and age structure of the woodland, to benefit priority wildlife species such as red squirrels

- Engage regularly with the local community about woodland management and improve educational opportunities for visitors

- Enhance areas adjacent to dune system by creating more space for dunes to roll back, and prevent suffocation of woodland edge

- Restore large parts of Ravenmeols to rare fixed dune grassland

- Improve accessible path network across woodlands

Attached is a short summary document about our plan for the next 10 years, but please do get in touch if you'd like to find out more about the specifics of what we want to achieve."

The document Chris mentions is attached above.  Please let me or one of the committee know if you would like to know more about the specifics so we can contact him.

Fourthly, we have also had an email that was sent in from MNTV member Jean that she received from Styal where she volunteers.  It's about the Green Recovery Challenge Fund, which I believe we helped with on the days when we planted trees on the Styal Estate when we started back at Styal earlier this year.

"Thanks to those of you that joined us for the walk and talks on the work being carried out through the Green Recovery Challenge Fund.  It was lovely to meet some of you.

Vicky has produced an update on the scope of the work that we thought it would be useful to share with you.

Please find it available to read here

Fifthly, we are still in the process of trying to get hold of Volunteer Cards (50-hour cards) and Long Service Awards so please bear with us whilst we try and find out where they are.

And finally, for those who worked at Hayfield on 18th July, Hayfield Volunteer Coordinator Debs Webster sent in the below:

"Our Ranger Martin asked me to pass on his thanks:

Hi Debs, I wanted to give a shout out to the Manchester Vols (MNTV) who came out to Nab Brow along the side of Kinder Res on Sunday 18^th.  What a bunch!  Was the hottest day of the year (at time of writing) and they were all determined to put in some hard work clearing the bracken from around the saplings and repairing the guards.  We made a big impact and some of the tiny oaks definitely appreciated it.  Plenty water and some lovely cakes at break time kept me going too.  National Trust parasols anyone?

Great bunch 10/10

Cheers,
Martin G"

A huge thank you from me too!  That is hard work and in the hot sun too.  That is proper dedication!!!

And that's it, nothing else from me apart from have fun and keep safe.

Ally

MNTV Program Planner

Himalayan Balsam Pulling at Speke Hall - 1st August 2021

 

We had a good turnout for Speke Hall on 1^st August to clear Himalayan balsam from a couple of areas near the car park. 

The first area was a field which was ready to be cut back, a lot of the balsam had already been removed by previous volunteer groups so it was like finding a needle in a haystack at first.  The field was very pretty with lots of wildflowers, such a shame that it will all be cut back.  As we moved across the field there was a large strip containing balsam but it was very tricky to remove due to the sheer number of thistles.

We then moved onto a second wooded area near a fishing pond and did a spot of litter picking whilst there and found a very neatly made empty birds nest. 

 

Adjacent to that was another large field and bingo lots of balsam which was easy to pull up.

A very rewarding day and I enjoyed being back at Speke for what was the best part of two-three year break.  Note to self – pay the bridge toll on the day!