Birch thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 11th December 2022

Seven of us spent today at Alderley Edge thinning birch on the heathland across the Macclesfield Road from the NT car park.  This was a continuation of a job we last did on 30th January and which other groups have done since.  The temperature was about 0C but the ground wasn't frozen.  There was no wind all day and in fact it never felt particularly cold.

Ranger Tim Ryan was not on duty but had explained the task to Daniel during the week and left us a map with instructions:

We worked all day in the red circle in two groups.  Neil, Andy and Jenny established the fire (blow torch and leaf blower worked their magic) and kept it going while Adrian, Daniel, Victor and newcomer Charlie dug up the birch saplings using tree poppers and mattocks and dragged them to the fire area.  The rootballs were cut off and discarded and the trunks/branches burned.

At elevenses and at lunch we ate the Christmas tree-shaped chocolate cake that Daniel had baked.  It wouldn't be a December workday without this shape cake!

During the day we cleared a good sized area:

Before ...

... and after

At about 2:30pm we stopped loading the fire and let it die down.  We taped it off with high vis orange/white netting and ended the day at 3:15 after returning the wheelbarrows, tree poppers and mattocks to the rangers' tool store.

We heard from Tim in the following week that he is very happy with what we did.  We are next at Alderley on 15th January and will be doing this task again then.

Daniel