Minders Working Group Reports

In October we cleared the west bank of the Leighside pond - the new coppice on the other bank can pretty much look after itself, by now - and Rosemary, having laboured heroically to clear the new hedge of encroaching bramble and bindweed, restored our flagging spirits with leek and potato soup. We saw plenty of frogs and froglets, and, to our delight, a baby toad. In September we were back on the riverside path, where the hawthorn and buddleia had been getting a bit above themselves. One particularly thuggish hawthorn was threatening to take the eyes out of passers by, so Dylan took a bowsaw to it, managing to leave a great raft of wild clematis intact, which then hung down beside the path like a green waterfall, sprinkled with stars.

An interesting walk for the birdwatcher, that path by the river, particularly if you like the raptors. A few weeks back a kestrel fell like a stone into the grass about ten yards in front of me, and took its freshly caught dinner (a water shrew, I would guess) to a nearby fence post. As it did so, a weasel bounced from the tussock where the shrew had died - I suppose it had been hunting the same prey - ran twice around in a circle on the path before me, and then disappeared into the meadow. Perhaps it was the same kestrel I saw land on one of the streetlights beside the road under the cliff, right next to a wood pigeon. The pigeon looked rather uncomfortable, like a portly old gentleman who has just noticed that he is sharing his park bench with two goths and a bottle of cider.

The peregrines have bred again; I have recently seen what looked like the father and two juveniles practising their long, swift dives across the face of the cliff. The jackdaws were milling around, squeaking and bumping into each other - ever seen a dog loose in a school playground? - and the raven came off a chalk ledge, all four foot of him from wingtip to wingtip, like Scarlett sighting the Russian cavalry at Balaclava. He punched through the chaff of jacks as if they weren`t there, and made for the nearest peregrine with murder in his heart. Like Scarlett, he was attacking uphill, and for all his great strength and wrath, he couldn`t climb above the falcon...so he flipped over on his back, and clawed at it with his great talons. Apparently the upside-down flying thing is part of his courtship ritual. I don`t know what effect it might have on an impressionable female raven, but by God it impresses me.

The peregrine got away. He is, after all, the fastest animal on the planet.

A couple of weeks back I met a man who had spent much of his working life quick-setting hedges. He told me that before mechanical slashing came in, hedgerows tended to reflect the tastes of the men who had swopped them, as they would carefully work around flowers they were fond of. We are starting to get a similar effect on parts on the Railway Land. We spent part of the June workday clearing nettles in the glade below the big swamp cypress, and beside the path along what is left of the old viaduct. I don't suppose we will ever get the small, delicate plants here - no primroses or windflowers - but after a few years of this, we are getting healthy colonies of meadowsweet, hemp agrimony, and pendulous sedge. Perhaps a different team of volunteers would have left other species to grow.

Half way through the session I wandered over to the signal box, as the Junior Management Board were meeting there, and I had something rather exciting to show them. The JMB has a lot of new members - young, keen, and not easily impressed. ("Yeah, I thought it would be a snakeskin...."). To get there I crossed the old sidings area, currently awash with head-high bramble. Our Habitat Advisory Group have wrangled long and hard over this - good food source for birds and insects, cover for mammals, and so forth, but if you turn your back for five minutes the alders and sycamores take over, and all of a sudden you've got a woodland where you didn't want one. Anyway on this occasion I found myself in the middle of a squeaking cloud of newly fledged whitethroats, at that interesting stage where they perch confidently on a dead teasel, and then immediately fall off again. So I thought, well, we got that bit right.

Looks like a good year for small birds. I have seen baby blue and great tits, crows and magpies, kestrels, blackbirds, mallard, wrens, and, (I think) blackcaps. There are also plenty of dragonflies about; the broad-bodied chasers over my garden ponds have been joined by a four-spotted (Libellula quadrimaculata), and I have seen three beautiful demoiselles. Some butterflies are doing well - plenty of pale painted ladies blown in from North Africa, and the Brooks are heaving with meadow browns. However, I not yet seen any red admirals: a few usually survive the winter, but this last one must have been just too cold. I haven`t checked the reserve at night, but there has been one glow worm on the back lawn.

One of the wild flowers that the brambles tend to push aside is the viper's bugloss. Fewer of these than usual by the path to the signal box. On the other hand it is flourishing in the wall around the Dripping Pan, and on the cliffs downstream of the Snowdrop Inn. Seems to be plenty of red valerian and bird's foot trefoil up there, too.
But this is botanizing with binoculars - I am not daft enough to go up there and have a close look.

Only seven of us on Sunday, but we were armoured in righteousness, and fortified with mince pies. And anyway the task suited a small number of volunteers; we were working with the terrible slashers again, and they do not forgive propinquity.

The brambles have been threatening the path near the river - that section near the old allotments - and we not only want to make life easier for people walking along it, but also to provide habitat for butterflies. There are wall and meadow browns here, commas and orange tips, to say nothing of the ubiquitous red admirals and peacocks. Add in the large and small whites, and the various blues (including the Adonis) that might drift in from the downs above, and you have a population worth catering for. (And I haven`t mentioned the moths, or the bats that feed upon them).

So we hacked and slashed and trampled, we lopped, raked, and pitchforked up the arisings. And as Dan pointed out, if we got rid of the old brambles, the local rabbits might take care of the new for us. The we shook hands all round, and went back to Lewes and Brighton and London, and I walked home past the signal box, regretting that I had not had the sense to put on a second pair of socks, and a pair of ravens (I think) made rude remarks. A sarcastic lot, the corvids.

Nine blackbirds on the windfall apples this morning. Still a long way short of last winter's record of 21. Three more and I could have baked a pie.

Fifteen of us for November's workday, so we split into two groups - one afloat, and one on dry land. The latter headed off into the older of our two coppices - the one beside the new storm overflow pipe - and thinned out the young hazels so that light could get to the ground between them, allowing a more diverse flora to develop. We were rather more successful than we had intended when we planted these, so there was a lot of clearing to be done.

The rest of us took the new boat down into Heart of Reeds, to open up the channels by clearing away the overgrowth. Much the same task, really, but wetter. We are still feeling our way into this task - you can take all the advice you want, but things look very different when you are actually down there, with the reeds towering overhead. Since one of the roles of a conservation group leader is to experiment with various techniques, assessing their effectiveness and working out the health and safety implications, I tried two different ways of cutting the reeds back. One can, of course, sit at the side of the boat and use long-handled hedging shears. This works well enough, but is not very exciting. Alternatively, one can stand in the bow of the boat with a slasher - in this case, a four-foot ash pole with a sickle blade on the end of it - and flail madly away like a Saxon thegn caught outside the shield wall. This is stylish, and surprisingly effective, but as anyone who has ever stood up in a small boat will know, there are certain drawbacks. I have reluctantly decided that the benefits of this approach are heavily outweighed by the risks - a pity, really, as it was great fun while it lasted.

When we had had enough of this - it was a damp and exhausting task - we used the boat to ferry piles of cut willow from the big island to South Street`s bonfire. The willow self-seeds everywhere, and, given half a chance, would take over the entire site. To complicate matters, cut willow, if left on damp ground, will root, sprout and flourish. A good example of how to keep a reserve just wild enough, without Nature snatching the reins from one`s hands.

The second photograph down reminds me that I have put this entry off for longer than I had thought. The broad-bodied chasers have fought and died over the pond, the emperors have gone, and now only the common darters are in flight, and perhaps a few southern hawkers. A mistle thrush has adopted a holly tree full of berries in the lane, and is defending it against all comers. He has his work cut out, though, as the greenfinches come in mob-handed - 'flock' is, I believe the technical term. No more purple stains on the roads and paths, so the woodpigeons, hanging upside-down from the elders with that curiously chuckleheaded look they have, no longer have to pretend to innocence.

Well, we got our own boat for Heart of Reeds, and, of course, it rained again. Dan and I hung around by the railway gate in case anyone turned up, and were rewarded by a rolling, boiling confusion of house martins, swooping a foot from the ground and soaring in giddying loops over Greyfriars. Apparently the whole town was full of them. Let us hope they do as well in their African wintering grounds...curiously, no-one seems quite sure where these are. The raptors also seem to be doing well - buzzards, kestrels and peregrines all over the place, and the other day I stepped out of my back door to the heart-stopping sight of a female sparrowhawk, immediately overhead, being attacked by a magpie. Pots and kettles, eh?

When weather has allowed, we have been busy on the Reserve. I saw the new coppice on a sunny morning, the other day, and it looked just fine. But then a dozen people had spent the best part of an afternoon ripping out every sycamore and buddleia sapling they could find, to give the new trees a fair start in life. And the Leighside pond looks good...the loosestrife seemed to flower forever, and the yellow flag is now well established. There seems to be a rather more diverse flora under the water than we might have expected, and I wonder if there has been some adulterine planting...but if so someone has done a good job of it. If not, God has.

April`s workday was another washout, or perhaps I should say whiteout. I knew things were going to be a little difficult when I noticed all the snowmen.....as Dan said, we couldn`t even fall back on litter picking, because we couldn`t actually see the litter. So we took some photographs and went home through Wonderland.

March was a good one, though. Lots of volunteers, and we planted a new coppice on the spoil dragged up when the Leighside pond was restored. Mostly hazel and hawthorn, with a little ash, a cherry and a couple of young yew trees. (Thanks, Neil). This is pretty good habitat for woodland birds, including nightingales...which we do get on the reserve, though this northern edge is a bit too close to human habitat, and tabby cat. We also put in a new hazel hedge along the path, hoping that a less visible pond might attract fewer beer tins and shopping trollies.

More and more we have come to think of the reserve not as a few isolated acres, but as an important part of a vast mosaic of LNR's, SNCI's and SSSI's, set within an AONB. (Which, if you are not used to the jargon, is Local Nature Reserves, Sites of Nature Conservation Importance, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). This is called thinking strategically, and what it means is this: if I dig a pond in my garden, it fills rapidly with newts, snails and beetles. If I put up nest boxes, there is no shortage of tenants. And during the recent cold spell I saw a young fox on the back lawn who obviously hadn't seen snow before. He rushed half-heartedly at a cock pheasant (who flew off, squawking indignantly) and then had a mad fit, as a puppy will, and ran around in excited circles while we held our breath with the sheer delight of the thing. The countryside is not ideal for wildlife at the moment, but we can make it better, and when we do the animals that have been kept alive on the reserves can go back.

One of the nest boxes was donated by a six-year-old, who has told her mother that is now inhabited by blue twits. After much thought I have decided to let that one lie.

December was a washout for the Minders, the rain was both copious and horizontal, and though it stopped shortly after I started ringing round to cancel, I still had to turn away a few volunteers who turned up anyway. We are not too fanatical about health and safety, I hope - though the tools we use need handling with thoughtful care - but planting on a steep, wet clay bank above a deep ditch should be avoided if possible.

I was ill in January, but Dan tells me that useful work was done around the Leighside pond. We also had another batch of black poplars from the RHS; most of these went on the allotment site, but I have scrounged a couple for the banks of the Cockshut.

The weather was fine and bright for our February workday, and eleven volunteers turned up. We cleared the west-facing bank of the path to the signal box, piling up the cut brambles and sycamore saplings to make homes for voles and lizards. This site is particularly good for wild flowers - viper`s bugloss, mignonette, vervain, evening primrose, hemp agrimony - and we intend to keep it that way.

I suppose that raising funds for the Linklater Pavilion is one of the most important stages in the development of the Trust; this project will bring together different groups who have each worked in their own ways for the Railway Land - the Junior Management Board, the Nature Corridors For All team, the Minders, and so forth. A place to store archival material is of fundamental importance, as there is nothing like knowing where you have been when working out where to go next, and wherever that is, children from the local primary schools need to help us with our maps. However, we didn`t want any of this to distract us from our day to day, month to month work on the Reserve and I am glad to say that we have been busier than ever before - and with a wider range of people involved.

As you have probably seen, the old Leighside pond in the woods has now been dug out, following an inspired campaign by the JMB; the Minders` task in September was to clear away brambles and reedmace so the mechanical digger could get to work. Much help here also from local schools and the 6th Lewes cub pack. In November, we continued clearing the banks of the most northerly of the ditches down on the meadows and thinned out the trees between this and the path to the signal box. This means that we can move the barbed wire fence from the inner, to the outer bank of the ditch, so that grazing cattle can keep down the brambles and perennial weeds. This, in turn, allows Liz and Jenifer to plant their carefully-collected loosestrife, yellow flag and meadowsweet, currently floating happily around in my garden pond.

October was a little special, though; we finally got our own navy - or at least, Dan borrowed a boat from the Environment Agency, and we rowed around Heart of Reeds, cutting back the overgrowth and opening up various channels. This was mostly a reconnaissance in force; next time we will have our own boat and do a more thorough job. The task was vastly enjoyable, though - it is quite something to float through a reed bed, surrounded by frogs, grass snakes and dragonflies, and then realise that one is within a hundred yards or so of a busy shopping precinct. So what other town can boast that, eh? And the stonechats are back on Chilly Brook, checking out our new hedge - not much to look at, yet, but just wait for the spring.

In May we repaired the path under the railway, fortified by Rosemary`s nettle soup. I also started issuing the new Minders` uniforms - green sweatshirts with an embroidered mallard rising from a stand of bullrushes. (All proper, as the heralds say). These were provided by Councillor O`Keeffe, who has mastered some strange alchemical process by which old beer tins can be transmuted into 70% cotton,30% polyester fabric. And very warm and comfortable they are too. In June we planted the promised bluebells behind Greyfriars, with sanicle and sweet woodruff among them. This last used to be dried and used to stuff mattresses, though we may have to wait a few years before the harvest. N.b. the butcher`s broom on this site looks pretty sickly; perhaps it needs more shade? I have planted one recently on another, darker site, and it is flourishing like a green bay - better, in fact, as the rabbits have not really touched it.

This month we cleared overgrowth around the base of the black poplars on the old allotments, though I confess I left all the meadowsweet in place...originally `mead sweet`, as it was used to flavour that drink, and doubtless an important food plant for something-or-other. We then went on to the wildflower meadow at the entrance, and started clearing some of the docks and brambles that have cropped up. A lady passing by told us that she remembered local meadows before the War, and they would`t have had any of THAT in them (pointing to a particularly robust and aggressive wild brassica). We took her advice. You can`t buy in expertise like that, and if it is freely offered, you grab it with both hands.

If stuck in traffic just north of the Ashcombe roundabout, console yourself by taking a look at the grassy banks beside the road. A particularly good crop of pyramidal and common spotted orchids this year.

Eight of us spent our April work day clearing bramble from the bank of the north/south ditch between the water meadows and the all-weather path. That particular ditch has been getting pretty dark and gloomy, and allowing a little light down there will do it no end of good. Which reminds me...

I have been re-reading Gerald Wilkinson`s excellent `History of Britain`s Trees`, in an afterword to which he writes, "I always seem to be hearing about bands of husky conservationists removing `scrub`. What is so offensive about scrub, the first stage in the natural succession to woodland?" Now, woodland is wonderful, and I for one would happily replant the ancient Andredswald, the great forest which once covered the whole of Sussex. (Oak on the Weald, beech on the Downs, elm on the coastal plain). However, a glance at the map will show that we have a few stands of timber left, and more is being planted. What we are desperately short of is scrub, heath, birch, bramble, alder and elder and all the scruffy little trees and shrubs that smell funny and don`t have many friends. Because then of course you also get the plants and the moths and the birds that need these conditions, and at the moment are having a pretty thin time of it. And as Wilkinson implies, scrub is an unstable environment which will turn to forest as soon as your back is turned. So forgive us the hacking, slashing and burning; we do it for the whitethroats and the nightingales and the little blue butterflies.

Over the past fortnight I have seen red admiral, peacock and brimstone butterflies; on Wednesday I saw my first bat of the year in Ham Lane, and yesterday I nearly stepped on a grass snake. (Which gave me a reproachful look before gliding off into the brambles). Very beautiful, but rather worrying. I hope they all survive the coming week. (And I hope the rest of us survive the coming century, too). I have also recently seen a woodcock on the old tip, which caused me to jump up and down with excitement. I think I`d make a rotten scientist.

Well, last Sunday was a bit of a washout. Three of us headed off into the woods with loppers, shears, and good intentions, but the rain was falling hard, and had obviously been doing so for some time. The brook (you know her habit) was showing a fine disregard for distinctions between bed and bank, and our lovely wet woodland was a darn sight more wet than wood. We squelched and splashed on gamely until Dylan claimed to have seen the periscope of a passing U-Boat. While neither Dan nor I really believed this, by this stage we didn`t feel like taking chances, and decided that a survey of land above the waterline was a better and safer bet.

A torrent was pouring from the Winterbourne, under the footbridge and into Heart of Reeds, and from there into the dipping pond, and on the water meadows beyond. This was heartening and impressive. Checking this afternoon I note that much of the azolla has been swept away. (This is the tiny red water fern that makes the ditches look like bus lanes - not a major problem, but we could do without it). I would guess that the water quality in the ditches is also much improved. Since the great glory of the Railway Land is its diversity of sub-aquatic fauna (i.e. water beetles and such-like minibeasts) this bodes well for the coming spring.

Nine moorhens in Railway Land Meadows this morning...suggests that A) someone has had a good breeding season, and B) there are no longer mink active on the Cockshut.

This time of year, when the soil cools down, is ideal for planting and transplanting. Having spent much of the summer pulling stuff up, we now find ourselves putting stuff in - trees, shrubs and wild flowers. In the last minders session of`06 we added wild service trees and butcher`s broom to the corridor between the woods and Greyfriars in which the new pipeline was buried, with honeysuckle and wild clematis to cover the bits of pipe above ground. In the spring, when the soil warms up again, we will scatter bluebells over the site to grow between the trees.

Our last work party created viewing lines down into heart of reeds so that the water and reeds can be seen more easily.