Your superpower? Creating a wildlife oasis in the centre of Gorse Hill and Pinehurst for generations to enjoy.
We’ve got a lot to do again this month, with a wide range of jobs that we need your help with across the site. Please join us on our usual outing on the 3rd Sunday of every month between 10 and 12, next event on 25th of April.
Fritillaries in the wildflower meadow
While you’re there, be sure to visit the wildflower meadow, where the fritillaries that we planted last year have started to come up!
As well as the familiar clearance and planting jobs that need doing we have unwanted visitors to evict! The Himalayan Balsam growing along the banks of the stream is an invasive species that’s crowding out native plants and has to go.
Checkout the event for more details of exactly what we’ll be up to and where to meet.
Our work party this month sees us tackling a wide range of jobs. We’ve got chipping, strimming, planting, and all sorts planned. There are even some trees that need to be freed!
We’ll be spread out in a few areas across the site, so everyone can keep distanced. Please RSVP so we know how many are coming and can plan accordingly.
We’re giving our new chipping attachment for the tractor it’s first outing. To make way for our new birch grove we’ve removed a big pile of brambles that need to be chipped.
In the picnic field the trees have outgrown their supports and need to be freed from the rubber bands holding them. In many cases it’s now the trees that are holding the posts up rather than the other way around.
And in the areas that we’ll be clearing there are new trees to go in, as well as the ongoing task of making sure our 2019 plantings are looked after.
Please RSVP so we know how many people are coming and can plan to keep you all safely distanced. We’ll send you details of exactly where to meet and what you might need to bring for the various jobs.
We’re restarting our work parties this month with some more tree-planting.
We will be doing this in a covid-safe way by avoiding meeting as one big group. To help us plan this please register for the event so we know who’s coming.
We will be doing some new planting to replace trees that have been damaged or removed and giving a bit of TLC to our younger saplings. Depending on numbers we may also be doing a bit of litter-picking in some areas.
The planting will be happening on 21st February.
If you’d like us to keep you up to date with the latest events and goings-on at HBUF, why not subscribe to our mailing list? We’ll send you a maximum of one or two emails a month with event details and other news.
The trustees and have agreed to cancel January’s session, and we will review when we can start up again on an ongoing basis.
Even before the lockdown, when we were at Tier 4, it seemed wrong to go ahead. With the national lockdown now in place our decision seems even more justified.
Technically there might have been a way we could work within the restrictions, but we would prefer to act in the spirit of the measures being taken, rather than trying to work to the limits of what we can get away with.
Thankfully, Hreod Burna Urban Forest remains a fantastic place for people to come for their daily exercise. An oasis in the middle of Gorse Hill and Pinehurst.
We’ll be back up and running normally just as soon as we can. In the meantime we are looking at ways that you or your family group might be able to ‘adopt’ an area to look after on an individual basis, without the need for us to all meet up. For instance, maybe you could adopt an area of planting and keep the saplings staked and protected. We’ll be exploring the practicalities of that over the coming week.
If you’re not already, please do consider subscribing to our mailing list to be the first to hear of our plans as they unfold.
On a cold, greyish, misty-moisty morning, a group of fifteen people came together to work. While twelve chose slipping about in the afore-mentioned mud, trying their hands at coppicing, the rest adjourned to the wildflower meadow to finish this year’s planting.
Coppicing is, basically, clearing parts of the woodland in order to create space for the remaining trees to grow into large trees, thus being able to fulfil their potential. There is, paradoxically, a certain amount of cutting trees to the ground that goes on initially, accompanied by tidying away of undergrowth and brush. These trees will not die, however, but will make new growth from the stump.
This took place last Sunday, 6th December 2020, in the adjoining area to that which was begun last year. The plan is then to plant under-storey trees in the areas that have been cleared, for example holly, yew, hazel – sometime soon in the new year, we hope. There will still need to be some clearing up of undergrowth to take place at our first work party of 2021 in January.
While this was taking place in one area, in the wildflower meadow a smaller group of three people finished planting up the fritillaries; the First-Sunday work party in November had planted just over half of the thousand bulbs, together with five hundred wildflower plug plants, comprising field geranium, birds foot trefoil, ox eye daisy, red campion, meadow buttercup, cowslip, common toadflax, field scabious and rough hawkbit (hope I’ve left nothing out). So, next spring, we are hoping for a burgeoning forth of an amazing nature!
Juanjo also managed to capture the day on film
So, all our gratitude goes to our stalwart band of workers, including newcomers Gabby, Juanjo (photographer) and Ian, and then Jason (tree surgeon), his two daughters, Dave, Jake, Kate H, Kate R, Sue, Carol, Bob, Steve and Mary.
Hreod Burna Urban Forest has again been recognised by the Royal Horticultural Society and South West in Bloom.
We have been awarded a Certificate of Recognition in 2020, for being an important part of a wider movement to make all our communities stronger, greener, and happier.
In a general letter to all South West in Bloom groups, Kay Clark, RHS Community Development Manager said: “This year an amazing sense of community spirit has enabled people to face the difficulties of this dreadful pandemic. Through Bloom, it’s Your Neighbourhood and other community gardening activities, you have laid the strong foundations that helped make your communities more resilient in these testing times.
“We know that people have felt closer to nature through lockdown and valued access to green space so much more and we have heard that people are valuing your work more than ever before. We have been incredibly moved by your stories of courage, creativity and ingenuity in helping your wider communities through this time and we wanted to recognise how important you all are and how valuable your work is with certificates in 2020.”
Steve Thompson, the Chair of Trustees for HBUF, said “We have been given awards from South West in bloom for several years now. Normally they have gone around with me, but this year they couldn’t because of COVID-19. If they had visited, they would have appreciated the new planting. And I’ll have a word with them about their spelling…”
Since the South West in Bloom judges last visited the forest, our volunteers have planted hundreds more trees and over a thousand new wildflowers. Let’s hope they are suitably impressed when they visit us again next year!
For our November work party we had a great morning planting in the wildflower meadow. After a wet week the weather was kind to us on the day itself, and the ground nicely softened up by the rain.
We had a mix of 500 wildflower plug-plants and 1,000 fritillary bulbs to put in, which you’ll be able to lookout for as they flower next year. They’ve been planted in patches across the meadow so we’re hoping for small patches of colour across the field.
It was a fabulous way to while away a Sunday morning.
You can join us on our next work group on the first Sunday in December, when Jason will be leading us in a bit of coppicing. We may also have a few leftover bulbs to put in…
Below are some of the plants we’ve put in so you know what to look for, with links to the rest if you’re interested.
Some of these I recognise from my own garden, I just never knew what they were called until now 🙂
As the fritillary once thrived in flooded hay meadows across middle and southern England, it should be at home in Hreod Burna.
By the time we’re finished, 1,000 bulbs will have been planted, so we’re hoping for an excellent display when they flower in April & May.
Meadow crane’s-bill has hairy stems and saucer-shaped, white, blue or violet flowers about 4cm across. It can be seen in lowland hay meadows, roadside verges and grasslands. It flowers between June and August.
Oxeye Daisy, found in traditional hay meadows and along field margins. Its large blooms appear from July to September and are so bright that they appear to ‘glow’ in the evening, hence the other common names of ‘Moon daisy’ and ‘Moonpenny’.
Below is a list of all the plants we put in this time, with links to the Wildlife Trusts and Royal Horticultural Society web sites if you fancied finding out a bit more.
So that it can reach its full potential as a haven for wildlife and people alike in the urban landscape of Swindon, the Hreod Burna Urban Forest needs a lot of work.
Following on from the huge success of our efforts to mow the wildflower meadow in September, we have plans to take on a series of vital jobs in other parts of HBUF.
Just some of our wildflower volunteers
Over the coming months we have volunteers from various groups coming in for one-off events and we’re launching a regular get-together once a month to tackle a long list of jobs that the trustees have identified:
Strimming, clearing of brambles and cutting back in some areas to allow new planting and maintain previously planted areas.
Creating a grove of birch trees around the trees rescued from the Moonrakers roadworks.
Preparation and planting of our Celtic tree circle.
Strimming and clearance of existing paths and cutting back trees/undergrowth in preparation for laying of new paths.
Coppicing – this was started last autumn and needs to be maintained.
Planting of trees & under-storey shrubs (e.g. box, yew, holly).
Planting of 1,000 fritillaries and wildflower plug plants in the wildflower meadow.
Clearance of the Himalayan balsam growing along the brook – it’s an invasive species.
Our regular work parties will be on the first Sunday of every month, starting on the 1st of November.
The events will be covid-safe. We have plenty of jobs spread across the site to allow small groups to work at distance within government guidelines.
We’ll post more details of the particular works planned each month closer to the date, and what particular skills & equipment (gloves, tools, etc.) might be required. If you can join us every month, or just for an hour or two every now and again, your efforts will be greatly appreciated (not just by us but by everyone that gets such joy from the forest both today and for years to come).
You can check back here or on Facebook for news of upcoming events. If you haven’t already, why not subscribe to our mailing list for advanced warning of events and other updates from HBUF.
Last Sunday, 13th September 2020, at 10.00am, a large group of people met at our wildflower meadow to help with the annual mow and rake.
Before…
So, how many people does it take to mow and rake a meadow? I counted twenty; and they were perfectly splendid specimens of humanity who had given up their Sunday morning to engage in some pretty vigorous exercise. One of them, pressed into service by his girlfriend’s mother, was seized upon straight away to mantle (if there’s a ‘dismantle’, there has to be a ‘mantle’, right?) a new rake before using it to do some raking. Bob started on another, but had to stop as he lost a nut and bolt. Can’t get the staff. The girlfriend, by the way, had stayed in bed.
There was a certain amount of standing around to begin with, since an assumption had been made that the mowing would have already taken place during the week. That assumption is all tied in with an inference about mowers – just because something is mechanical doesn’t mean that it is just a walk in the park. At some point soon, we will be getting a tractor and then, perhaps, we can talk about walks in parks, but for now, take it as read that mowing with a scythe-mower is a strenuous work-out.
However, this standing around was a brilliant opportunity to engage with new people, to see old friends, chat over how and why everyone had come, put faces to names, marvel over what a little jewel Hreod Burna Urban Forest is, and express surprise that so many people who live in the area do not know of its existence.
Andy took the first shift with our scythe-mower and he alternated with our press-ganged boyfriend over the course of the morning. Since I have very little muscle, I did a bit of raking to show willing till my little muscle gave up, and everyone else did a lot of energetic raking. Then I remembered the important job of taking photographs. I hope you will be able to spot yourself in one of them. Unfortunately, Andy won’t be able to spot himself as I missed him out (sorry, Andy, one day your turn will come and you will achieve stardom).
…after!
All of this airy persiflage goes to express our huge thanks to everyone who came and worked so hard. We are particularly thankful because of all the setbacks everyone has had this year so far.
P.S. During the course of the morning, Jason’s daughters found beetles, frogs, toads, crickets, grasshoppers, and even a mouse. Several of us were gifted, furthermore, with visits from dragonflies.
For some years now, I’ve been noticing a particular call in the woods during spring. You should be quite surprised at this, because I am notoriously unobservant and can rarely spot anything unusual or interesting. Then, this spring, I came across what I took to be a bird of prey with a pigeon not far from the weir bridge; this was just beside the trees we planted in January close to Pinehurst Road.
I did a bit of research on the internet (how on earth did we manage to find stuff out before this amazing invention?) and had a listen to the birds on www.british-birdsongs.uk. My dog got a bit mystified as I worked my way through the recordings of black kite, red kite, kestrel, merlin, buzzard, peregrine falcon and more. Well, enough of the waffle, it transpired that it was the call of the sparrowhawk I was hearing. Steve (Thompson) posted the information on our Facebook page a little while ago.
Then, suddenly, there were no more calls. What had just happened? Had we let the cat out of the bag and vandals had done away with our beautiful birds of prey? On my daily walk, I noticed a car-sticker calling for action to protect songbirds and racing pigeons – horror of horrors!
Then Google let me down. I could find articles about the effect of birds of prey on local songbird populations (not significant apparently, so the car-sticker person should worry less) and lots of other information, like for example, that the female is larger than the male, so the latter is able to manoeuvre much better than his missus, but no information about seasonal calls.
Eventually, I emailed the British Trust for Ornithology. The reply was at the same time comforting as well as perturbing:
“In short, you are right about Sparrowhawks only being vocal during the breeding season. The male will call to the female when he brings food in. He doesn’t approach the nest as he might become food himself – males are much smaller than females – the food is handed over away from the nest to much calling by the female. Once the young get bigger they too will call for food. Once the young leave the nest they will perch close by for a week or two and call for food but once they become independent the wood will fall silent until next year. Outside of the breeding season Sparrowhawks are largely silent.”
So, there you have it. Our sparrowhawks are safe at HBUF, though the male is rather less safe than the female.
