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Some woodcraft mid October
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We started off our events on October with a mini clear out of invasive plants from the pond at Penrhyn Road.
A quick bit of tool sharpening to start the day
Following this we worked on the newly laid hedgerow at Tolworth Court. The plants laid last year had put on lots of new growth, where we had gappy sections, we did some weaving in with live rose suckers helping to close up the gaps all while trying not to get too scratched up!
The blacktorn which was cut is also starting to put on new growth so we should have some really good egg laying spots for brown hairstreak butterflies in this area.
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| Brown Hairstreak buttery eggs found during site checks in 2019 |
We also started to work on the bramble areas of the knoll. While some areas of the knoll have a good matrix of scrub, open grassland and trees, other areas have become heavily brambled. While bramble is brilliant for nesting sites, food sources and acts as tree nurseries where deer are about, we wanted to open up some areas to bring back a matrix habitat and create sheltered basking areas.
We used the cut bramble to try to close up gaps in some of the larger established hedgerows on site, including areas where people keep cutting through the hedgerows. Hopefully this will make it a little bit harder for that to happen.
We will be back at Tolworth Court Sports Ground in the new year to work on Scrub in the slow worm side of the site, digging out roots to bring back and maintain the grassland and scrub matrix.
Mid October saw us in the River at Middle Mill doing our monthly RMI surveys - wanted to share this very cool leech spotted in the tray - a Duck leach - likely Theromyzon tessulatum or Glossiphonia complinata according to the EA, and thought to be Theromyzon tessulatum from sources at Bug Life - so there is a two to one opinion split a the moment :)
After the RMI, we were back to our current Saturday volunteer feature - this time at Kingston Hill working on our green woodworking skills. Mark Lloyd aka the Bushmucker showed people how to carve spoons out of green wood. It’s a fantastic workshop to attend and everyone always has fun – its great to see the variety of spoons that people carve from the different types of tree and the properties of the wood.
Folk selected the wood that they wanted to carve and then cut the stems to the size of the spoon they wanted to carve.
The cylinders were then split down the middle. Once split, the rough shape of the spoon was carved out using a few different techniques including splitting off the excess wood using a saw, blade and hammer (one of the other larger logs) and then whittling the shape of the handle with the grain of the wood.
Once the handles and the basis shape of the outside of the bowl was achieved people used the crook knives to cut across the grain of the wood to create the bowl of the spoon.
New fact learnt – did you know that Jays were known acorn specialists and are credited with the spread of Oaks? I didn’t – looking for more information I came across this paper from 1979 and what interested me was that the leaf eating caterpillars were the main source of food for nestlings in https://www.jstor.org/stable/4533982.
This ties in nicely to a group that the University is part of a small working group looking at various alternatives for Oak Processionary Moth (OPM) control (more controlling levels rather than eradication). Increased nests for predatory birds is one of the suggested avenues being explored in different studies, as well as looking at how to exploit known parasites of OPM such as the parasitic fly Carcelia iliaca. We had the opportunity to send off a few harvested nests for testing to see if we might have the fly at our sites at Roehampton Vale and Kingston Hill – however as the sample size is small, its only presence that can be determined rather than confirmed absence.
I'll do my best to keep you updated with the findings on if we are lucky enough to have Carcelia on our site :)
Til next time.
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