Dunham Massey 9 June 2013

A wet, muddy, but pleasantly sunny and hot day was spent by seven Manchester volunteers, plus three from the Merseyside group. We were in the lowest of the ponds in the park to prepare it for an experimental attempt to control an invasive pond weed - Crassula helmsii. This semi-aquatic plant can (and does) grow to cover ponds and starve other waterlife of oxygen. You can find more information about it here: http://cabiinvasives.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/getting-swamped-australian-swamp-stonecrop-crassula-helmsii-in-the-uk/

In the pond at Dunham, the rangers wanted to try covering the the crassula with plastic sheeting in the same way you might kill off weeds in your garden. In order to do this as effectively as possible, we were there to remove the iris growing through the crassula so the polythene sheets could be flat on the surface to cut out the light. The iris will happily grow back again - we are usually removing excess from the ponds at Dunham once a year anyway.

Supervised by ranger John Mann, most of the group were in the pond in waders, pulling up the iris, with a couple on the bank dragging and piling it up. It was going to stay there to drain for a day or so.

This will allow the various wee beasties in the iris to escape back to the pond before it is taken away for burning. At the end of the day we laid the polythene, dug it into the bank and weighted it with logs from the pond. It will be interesting to see the outcome of the experiment.

Three moorhen chicks and their mother went happily about their business in the pond while we worked and there were plenty of fish, dragonflies and damselflies. The park was full of visitors, as you might imagine on a sunny Sunday in June, quite a few small children were envious of us paddling about.

Visit to the heronry in Macclesfield forest - Tues 4th June 2013

What a beautiful evening it was:-)

Six of us met outside the Leather's Smithy pub at Langley and got our walking gear on, ready to go and see the herons.

 

Unlike previous years when Kate has taken us on this walk, we decided to visit the heronry first rather than at the end of the walk. This was because, when both Kate and Sue visited the heronry independently in the few days previously, we'd each noticed that the herons were more active earlier in the evening, so thought it best to visit them first this time.

On our way to the heronry, we passed a family of mandarin ducks swimming along the reservoir (above) and another family of ducks climbing the steps at the side of the wier (below).

Unfortunately Sue and Hazel missed this second family of ducks as they were too busy nattering to notice them!

We stopped at two different view points when we got into sight of the heronry. There were some Canadian geese around as well as a coot and a Great Crested Grebe but the highlight was seeing the herons in the trees and some youngsters in the nest (unfortunately the photo's of the chicks in the nest didn't come out - they just looked like blobs on a nest of twigs).

However we did get a fairly decent shot of a youngster in a tree (below) with a nest in the branches above him and another nest (the one where the young chicks were) over to the left of the photo.

We'd all taken binoculars (and were envious of Ian's because they were super-dooper massive!!) and were able to see the herons and chicks clearly. It was a wonderful sight:-)

Before moving off to walk through the forest and back to the pub for drinks and eats, Andy took a group photo of us (below).

I don't know about the others but, despite putting anti-mozzie spray on, they got me anyway!!!

Back at the Leather's Smithy, a couple of us had a meal whilst the rest  just had something to drink and left around 10pm.
Our thanks to Kate who led the walk on what was a thoroughly enjoyable evening!

Broadleaf weed / invasive species removal at Styal 2 June 2013

Four of our volunteers turned out and met up with the rangers at Styal.

volunteer with "lazy dog" tool

Five of use spent the day removing Himalayan balsam, broad leaved dock, and ragwort from a field near the Bollin at the Alrincham Road end of the estate. We had some impact on the problem but there was a lot of dock to attack and quite a lot of it is still there. 

trampled sward and disturbed ground where docks have been removed

Cycle ride round the Heatons - 29th May 2013

Tonight we had our May social.  Four of us met up with ten members of Stockport Community Cycling Club for a ten mile ride round the Heatons and Levenshulme.  (At the same time ten other SCCC cyclists left us and did a six mile route).  Our ride was a circular one from Heaton Chapel railway station, across the A6, past Houldsworth Golf Course, along the Manchester Cycleway into Levenshulme, through Cringle Park, along the Trans Pennine Trail and Burnage Lane to the new East Didsbury tram station, through Heaton Mersey into Heaton Moor and back past Heaton Moor Golf Club.

Gordon had cycled from work in Wythenshawe to HC station and cycled back home afterwards.  He'll have clocked up 30 miles today!  I suspect the other three of us, who don't cycle often (Daniel and Sue hadn't cycled since the MNTV bike ride round Gatley and Cheadle last August!), might be waking up tomorrow with sore legs!

Thanks to Sue and SCCC for organising the ride, to Sarah (SCCC) for leading us and to Andy and Jim Court (SCCC) for the loan of bikes.

(L to R) Gavin, Gordon, Sue, Daniel

Spiling at Styal 19 May 2013

Thanks to Mick for words and pictures (I had a weekend off)

Sunshine and apple blossom greeted us at Styal today. The task was spiling - protecting parts of the banks of the Bollin using willow withies. These are 'planted' into the banks and wound around willow stakes driven into the river bed a foot or so from the bank. Some of the withies will grow and help to stabilise the silt which accumulates behind the spiling, and all of it will prevent further erosion of the banks at those points. The three sections of spiling we have put in was mainly to protect the banks where the Bollin is threatening to erode the footpaths. The ten MNTV volunteers split into groups, some working in the water in waders, some harvesting the withies and some being the go-betweens.


 
Withies and stakes being harvested for the spiling
 
Weaving about to begin 
Most of the woven withies are underwater 
Some of the local wildlife came to see what we were up to

Mick

Dunham Massey on Sunday 12th May 2013

Five of our Group joined with 5 Merseyside Volunteers and, together with Colin, one of the Dunham Rangers, walked from the car park, past the pond and headed towards the courtyard, stopping to admire 5 ducklings lazing in the sun. We heard that they'd been the other side of the bridge yesterday in a section of the moat where some of them couldn't get out so Colin had to set up a ladder system to enable them to climb out when they wanted. He was pleased to see that they all had.

After walking through the courtyard and then down South Drive, we watched Colin feeding the deer - not as many turned up as usual as many are now finding their own food around the park, but it was great watching about 70 of them having their meal, a few of which reared up to 'fight' the others off when they thought they were getting too close!

 

Getting to the end of South Drive, we saw our task for the day!! Two large boggy area's either side of the path which were not draining because the drainage pipe from each area was completely blocked. The farmer on the other side of the brick wall had already dug a trench for the excess water to flow into once the blockages were sorted, which would then flow into the Bolin. The boggy area's were undermining the wall and causing tree's to become unstable so we split into 4 groups, in our wellies and waders, to tackle the task Two groups tried to clear the blockages and dig up some of the reeds and roots so the water would flow better, another group went over the wall to rod the blockages from the other side and the 4th group went up one of the slopes to make a trench deeper so water would drain more easily from that area once the rain came.

Here are photo's to show how boggy it was to start off and of one of our volunteers kitted out in waders having dug out a lot of the reeds and roots.

 

Although we got muddy and wet when the rain came!! we had a great time as we cleared both blocked drains and managed to make 'waterways' though the reeds so the water flowed down to the unblocked drains, under the wall to the fields the other side. There is still much to do and the drains may silt up again, but they'll be much easier to unblock next time and, eventually, when the excess water has cleared from the area's, the bricks we dug out will be used to make the drainage better for the future.
We had a great day, working with another volunteer group and also feeling like we'd really achieved something by the end of the afternoon:-)

27th AGM on Tuesday 30th April 2013

We held this year’s AGM at Norcliffe Chapel in Styal.  13 of our 27 members attended plus Rangers Simon Hiley (Styal) and Shane Bates (High Peak).

The meeting ran from 19:35 to 20:10 and covered:

- Apologies for absence

- Review and approval of the minutes of the 2012 AGM

- Chairman’s Report (Daniel Black)

- Treasurer’s Report (Denise Clark)

- Committee 2013/14

- AOB

The Chairman reviewed membership numbers and enquiries, work hours for 2012/13, workdays/worktasks, socials and thanked the many people (Committee, members, Rangers) for their in help in making the past year a successful one.  Members were told about the group's Twitter account (@Manchester_NTV), the new PO box address (no longer Sale but c/o NT at 61 Oxford Street, Manchester) and the mntv.worksiteleaders@gmail.com email address.

Nine people were elected to the Committee for 2013/14: Daniel Black, Sue Bonner, Denise Clark, Philippa Greaves, Ally Hardy, Gordon Irons, Tim O'Donnell, Adrian Potts and Matt Smethurst.

After an interval for tea, coffee, cake and biscuits we had a very interesting talk from Simon about the development plans for the Styal Estate and Quarry Bank Mill.  The project, titled "Revolution & Revelation", will cost £6m (£3m from a hopefully third-time-lucky Heritage Lottery Fund bid and £3m raised locally).  The whole idea is to change the flow of visitors through the property so that areas seldom visited (eg Styal Village, Northern Woods, Upper Garden) get a lot more visits and people don't just visit the mill.  The aim is to increase visitor numbers to 300,000 per year!  As the project develops there will be a lot of work that MNTV can get involved with such as fencing and landscaping.