Diary Reports - 2003
18 January 2003
A dry day at last and some sun. The December and January workparties were cancelled because of heavy rain. The river and brook both overflowed on the 2nd January and washed away the wood chippings on the path. The footbridge was 2 foot under water. Today we replaced the wood chippings and started moving the pile from the meadow to north of the footbridge for future path work. (What we thought was a small pile is turning out to be never-ending.) We need to move it before April, so will do a little at each meeting. We moved 50 8 foot chestnut poles, delivered by Jonathan, into the otter enclosure. We dug an experimental drain next to the stone bridge. And we cut back brambles along the Tilmore Brook path, which were crowding the bluebells, to widen the path. We cleared a diversion path away from the serious erosion of the bank. When we finished, it looked really good.
2 February 2003
We finished clearing the Tilmore Brook path, and cleared a lot of the brambles on the Mount. Peter extended the dead hedge on the river bank and we stacked arisings into that. Birds seem to be nesting in the dead hedge.
16 February 2003
John Blamire led the work to construct the otter holt. A wonderful turn-out, and no rain. Everything perfect, until we arrived on site, and found all our materials had been put into the river. We split into two parties - one to retrieve the materials, and the other to thin out the large willow opposite and drag all the branches over to the enclosure. We laid out two layers of large logs to form walls and inner chambers. Every log was nailed to two stakes either side of it, so nothing could move. Two small entrances were left in the foundation log layer, but were covered with a log in the second storey. Jonathan cut down the sycamore next to the bridge and we used most of the trunk and branches. The unused logs he split for us to use for path work. Then we covered the whole with two layers of poles sandwiching a sheet of thick plastic over one end (presumably the bed chamber!) to make it as watertight as possible, then secured the poles with a layer of mesh fencing. Then we covered it with every branch we could find. The finished product was a five star hotel! All done by 3:15. We didn't have time to put up the owl box, so John will come back to do that later. the barn owl appears to visit Rotherlands every evening - many sightings.
1 March 2003
Raining at the start - but still members turned up! The rain stopped for a while and we decided to work on one stretch of the path - the very muddy part by the crack willow near the end of the path by the Tilmore Brook. A lot of hard work collecting the split logs and chippings. Luckily Robert and Dave brought their wheelbarrows. We just finished our planned work when the heavens opened - we were all drenched. A useful exercise - we now know that in 2 hours 10 of us use a roll of Plantex, 30 split logs and 60 stobs. We will have to get a lot more materials.
16 March 2003
Lots done. Fixed14 bird boxes throughout the site. Moved frog spawn from all the pools in the meadow to the pond (and not a day too soon - the next day they were all dried out). Laid path on diversion previously created by the Tilmore Brook. Very hard work - chippings and logs had to be collected from the pumping station - it's a long path!
6 April 2003
We completed dead hedge in the Eastern Meadow and piled all the alder branches into it. We cleared around the oak tree and trimmed a few more alder branches. We moved all the chippings in the central meadow to the other side of the footbridge, and piled more branches onto the otter holt, then moved all the split sycamore logs out of the otter enclosure. We removed all the willow trunks that had rooted in the Central Meadow.
10 May 2003
We built the bridge over the drain in the Eastern Meadow (at last). The railway sleepers had been dropped in the wrong place, so we had to move them first. Peter soon came up with rope and a couple of poles to help move them. Then construction began - we only had one spade, so the ladies were eased out. They spent the morning dismantling the tepee which had been built from all the materials in our dead hedge, which we had only just competed at the previous work party. Clever kids, but we didn't like the fire they had lit next to their meeting place. What a professional job - ladies in the background, working to dismantle the tepee and restore it as a dead hedge. We haven't mowed this spring, and the meadows are looking beautiful.
4 June 2003
Pupils from Herne Junior School visited us for the day. Bob and Hilary Ayer, a couple of parents and Janet Buist, their teacher, walked them down to meet Jonathan West and Pat Redhill at 10 am. Bob and Hilary had to leave at 12 noon but Jenny Broadhead came for several hours, so we had sufficient adult supervision. Jonathan lead the whole day, with games and execises and stories - all geared to teaching them something of the value of wildlife. He was wonderful - they were of varied ages, and not that easy to control. But they really enjoyed themselves, particularly pulling up Himalayan Balsam! They did a great job.
7 June 2003
Continued work on the path diversion on the Tilmore Brook. We took pebbles and gravel out of the brook to form a base in the mud on the path. The path had to be levelled in several places, but we managed to lay one length of Plantex. Matthew came by, doing the bird survey. So did Pam and Clifford, doing the flower survey. A father and son from the Herne Junior group also came to see what we were doing, so it was a chatty morning - as it should be.
28 June 2003
We had another moth trapping evening. Tim Norris of Butterfly Conservation set up two traps, but unfortunately it turned so cold that most of the moths stayed indoors. We retired at 12:15 am absolutely frozen.
6 July 2003
Lots of work - Jill and Cassy raked up all the areas that had been cut for the moth trapping evening. Wendy, Lindsey and Pat attacked the Himalayan Balsam along the Tilmore Brook. Wendy found some Balsam that was taller than she was.Everyone worked on improving the path next to the pumping station. It had been extremely muddy and dangerous in wet weather.
2 August 2003
Balsam attack! The Town Council had strimmed it in the Eastern Meadow, so we pulled all the bits they couldn't reach. Then we moved to the Central Meadow in the pond area. Alf and Clifford slashed, and the rest of us pulled.
12 August 2003
Fifty-one people attended an evening walk to see bats at Rotherlands. Bat detectors were provided so that we could hear the bats using echo-location.
September 2003
One lot of contractors came to fell trees in the area where the pond was to be restored. The meadows were badly in need of a mow by September. Another lot of contractors came to mow the meadows. As well as a mower, they had another machine which made vast bales out of the freshly mown grass.
7 September 2003
We spent rather a long time inspecting the newly dug pond - already containing water. The meadows had been mown during the week and the plan was to open up the bales of grass and spread them in nettle beds. However the bales were already steaming and the fumes rather strong - so we rolled the bales into the Himalayan Balsam and underneath trees. The goat reserve people arrived, but the grass was too wet for them to use. Tim Speller arrived to dicuss the pond, so rather a disjointed workparty.
4 October 2003
We cut down the willow overhanging the eastern entrance to the Tilmore Brook path - it had been gradually dropping down. We trimmed the path edges that had become overgrown. We also cleared brambles and balsam in the north-western corner of the site.
2 November 2003
We planned to extend the bridge over the drain in the Eastern Meadow, but carrying the railway sleepers proved too difficult with the few volunteers present, so we manoeuvred the existing sleepers for better alignment. We found and filled in the deep holes left from Jonathan West's pole lathe demonstration to the Herne Junior children. It was too late to start another task, so we spent some time looking at the pond, which had filled right up, and the medieval timbers in the Rother near the footbridge.
