Coronavirus lockdowns have restricted our activities throughout the last year. When we have been able to do group tasks we have largely focussed on clearing and widening the paths to provide more distancing for visitors. Some before and after photos follow.
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Coronavirus update
Mid August and the heather on the common is looking better than it has for many years. Clearing invasive scrub during the winter has allowed the heather to thrive without competition for water and light. We can now look out at areas of heather which were largely hidden behind birch and willow last year. There is also the best crop of blackberries ever which provides more than enough for foragers and wildlife.
All parts of our society have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and Netley Common is no exception. With lockdown, our group activities were put on hold as was the case for all other volunteer groups. For a time the rangers were only dealing with urgent tasks, and got behind on routine work such as grass cutting. The small ranger team has also been depleted adding further to their backlog.
We had originally planned to resume our weekly tasks in September, but made a start earlier as some of the paths had become badly overgrown. We have had four tasks in July and August and recruited two new volunteers. Cutting back bramble and woody growth has allowed space for social distancing and made it easier to get a mower to the grass. Our ranger Martin came on Monday with his ride on mower and did a fine job of mowing the edge of the paths and up to the brambles. His Monday group of experienced volunteers also rebuilt a kissing gate and repaired two others.
During lockdown we saw greatly increased numbers of visitors to the site. This is to be welcomed, although for a time we had large amounts of litter. A number of regular users have increased their litter picking and it is now pretty much under control.
During May and June there were a number of large bonfires on site. Thankfully they did not spread to the heather or bramble, but burning large amounts of dead timber is always very bad for wildlife. Dead wood provides food for ants, beetles, worms and fungi. These feed reptiles, hedghogs and several species of birds, notably the woodpeckers. Simply put, bonfires on the nature reserve kills wildlife.
Our weekly tasks are set to run from 2 September until the end of March with a few weeks out for Christmas and New Year. We will be continuing to clear invasive scrub from the heather and join up the areas of heather. After the blackberries have finished we will also be removing some of the bramble to widen the paths and improve year round access.
Bramble bashing 11 March
Next task we will be continuing to cut back a path in the bramble at the western end of the site. This path was badly overgrown making access difficult last summer. As well as improving access, wider margins between the bramble patches will provide a fire break in the event of bramble fire. On Google Earth you can see this part of the common was very open in 1999, with just a few patches of bramble. Over the years these have grown and joined up. We should be burning up the bramble and having a fire.
Joint fonc / wcv / hcs task
FONC will be joining the HCS rangers and the Wednesday Conservation Volunteers on Wed 18th December. We will be clearing scrub from the heather, cutting back and burning bramble or some combination of the two. There will be a fire for baking potatoes so bring one along (wrapped in foil works best) Meet at the car park at 9.45. WCV have worked on the site before, notable doing the majority of the inner fencing. See their website for more details of what they do: https://wednesdaycv.org.uk/
HCV Sunday task
Come and join in with Hampshire Conservation Volunteers on Sunday 12th January for some scrub clearing and burning. Bring a potato if you like for baking in the fire. Meet at the car park at 10am. See their website for more details: https://www.hcv.org.uk/index.html
HCV Sunday task
Our planned start date in October has been and gone due to some boring administrative delays, but the wheels are moving slowly and we hope to start bfore much longer. In the meantime the lovely Hampshire Conservation Volunteers will be putting in a day of scrub clearing on Sunday 17th. Turn up on the day, or ideally book ahead so that they will have sufficient tools etc. https://www.hcv.org.uk/index.html
How to help
There are a number of ways to help, not just the important conservation volunteering
Website: Any volunteers for looking after the website would be most welcome. You may have taken pictures of the common that you are particularly happy with. It is best to avoid images of people due to data privacy issues. Please send pictures or your thoughts on the common to: friendsofnetleycommon@outlook.com
Administration: There is not a lot of admin involved, but it is important that it is done properly. A committee can have an input to the range of tasks the group undertake. Important roles are for a treasurer and secretary.
Conservation volunteers: New volunteers are always welcome. Volunteers have to be at least 18 years old. This is a condition of our insurance.
Contact
For all FONC enquiries or comments: friendsofnetleycommon@outlook.com
Antisocial behaviour such as motorcycle riding on the common or flytipping etc should be reported to the police on 101
Uncontrolled fires should be reported on 999
Future tasks
All tasks cancelled
Due to the Coronavirus epidemic we have no more tasks for this season. Normal service should resume sometime in September. Watch this space.
11 March Bramble bashing
Next task we will be continuing to cut back a path in the bramble at the western end of the site. This path was badly overgrown making access difficult last summer. As well as improving access, wider margins between the bramble patches will provide a fire break in the event of bramble fire. On Google Earth you can see this part of the common was very open in 1999, with just a few patches of bramble. Over the years these have grown and joined up. We should be burning up the bramble and having a fire.
First FONC task Wednesday 5th February
Better late than never. We are finally ready to start conservation work on Wednesday 5th February. Meet at 10:00 in the car park which is on the A27 almost opposite Netley Firs Close. We will be removing scrubby regrowth, mostly birch from in and around the heather. There will be a fire for burning the birch and cooking potatoes.
Thanks to a grant from the Chestnut Fund, we have bought nice new loppers and other tools. There should be more popping than lopping going on, as we now use tree poppers for removing the birch, roots and all. This should save a lot of time in future years as the previous practise of cutting and treating has been only partly effective.
Tasks will continue every Wednesday in February and March.
Past events
BRAMBLE BASHING
We made a good start cutting back brambles which had overgrown a path at the western end of the site. It was raining most of the time, but not too heavy and a fire always makes things seem better.
FIRST FONC SESSION
Our first session on Feb 5th was a great success in many respects. We found that potatoes will bake in a biscuit tin (without the biscuits). This is a much lighter bit of kit to carry around than a cast iron cooking pot. It was very pleasant with lots of sun and very little wind, but it helps the fire to keep going if there is some wind. The home made fire beater was not needed to put out a fire but was handy for fanning the flames. The prospect of raw potato for lunch was added incentive.
The new loppers are a delight to use and we used them for cutting saplings to size for burning. The ususal practise for dealing with these if they are too big to pull by hand is to cut them with loppers and treat with herbicide. There are troubles with this method. Firstly we are not trained to use the herbicide. Also even when it is applied by trained operators it does not always work, even if the weather conditions are ideal, which they are sometimes. When the herbicide doesn’t work we have new growth attached to a very strong root system.
Tree poppers are commercially available but at considerable expense. Our home made versions have been fabricated from various bits of scrap metal which happened to be on hand. The design of each depends on the material available, but they all work and make short work of birch seedlings. Ones which have regrown are more challenging but most come out with some gentle persuasion.
We also tried out a new piece of kit, the stump shifter, for removing bigger stumps or multiple stem regrowth. It consists of a triangle frame of metal posts and a wooden base. From the top a chain is led down and wrapped around the trunk of the offending tree. A multipart rope tackle attached to a strong point is used to haul the top of the frame, exerting great force on the chain and lifting the tree out. With 4 hauling on the rope, the upwards pull on the chain is equivalent to over 100 pensioners.
The metal posts were cut from the old signs that were replaced last summer. The wooden base is a fence post that rotted below the ground and had been replaced. What better way to deal with waste from the site than to use it for tools to manage the common.
HCV activity December 2018.
Here is a pic from last winter when volunteers from Hampshire Conservation volunteers made good progress removing invasive plants in the same patch of heather
Friends of Netley Common 