Birch thinning at Alderley Edge on Sunday 15th January 2023

Nine of us assembled in the Wizard car park at 9:30 for another day of birch thinning on the heathland the other side of the main road.  We continued the work we'd done on 11th December.  It did not look like anyone had been on site since then - the fire site was taped off just as we'd left it.  When we collected the tools from the rangers' toolstore we met ranger Sam who was off to do a day's tree felling with a few volunteers.

Thankfully the rain stopped at 10 as forecast and the rest of the day was fine.  Neil, Chris and Andy H got the fire lit and kept it going with bursts of air from a battery-powered leaf blower.  The rest of us poppered and mattocked the birches out of the ground, carried them to the fire then loppered them into burnable lengths.

Worksite before ...

... and after

Jenny joined us at 12 and had brought her petrol-powered leaf blower.  With two blowers going we kept the fire roaring and soon began to run out of birch to burn.  We continued until 2:30pm when we loaded the last of the cuttings onto the fire, let the fire burn down and then taped off the fire site.  Sam came over to talk to us at 2 and was very happy with our work.  We have now cleared all the birch in this area and so the next group will need to establish a new fire site near to the next significant batch of birch.

Thanks to everyone for coming along and for their hard work and good company.  This was our last workday at Alderley Edge for a while.  On 19th February we are at Bosley Cloud, not Alderley Edge, doing heathland work with the Congleton Volunteers.

Daniel