More vols out on the pull

10 volunteers came out last night including our youngest ever volunteer at 3 years old to pull up Himalayan balsam on Henllys LNR. The numbers were again swelled by 1st Henllys Scouts and we carried on in the area which we pulled with the scouts a couple of weeks ago. The hot weather has battered the balsam with many plants wilted to the point they can no longer support their height and they collapsed, which made pulling them that little bit harder. even the only stand of Japanese knotweed looked like it had been sprayed with glyphosate, but it was just heavily wilted from the dry ground.

Before

Oliver, one of the scouts and a veteran balsam puller, demonstrated to the 4 new volunteers how to identify, pull up, bend in half, Chinese burn and finally stack the Himalayan balsam. everyone then got really stuck in and we did another good area.

After

One of the volunteers, Rafe (6) asked me "what I was doing down in the stream?". I said "getting bitten by midges and mosquitos". He followed up quickly with "Is it because you smell?"; fair cop.

 

Jake (l) and Rafe (r) jump up from behind our balsam pile

Coed Eva Primary School confrmed to do exciting pond work

Pupils and staff from Coed Eva Primary Schools will be joining Friends of Henllys LNR and TCBC to plant up some native plants in and around the new ponds on the afternoons of Fri 12th and 19th July. One class will be planting while the other will be sampling the water quality by looking at the bug that have made home in the ponds in the 1 year they have been in existence. The class will be able to compare the 2 ponds and see if there are any recordable differences and if so see if they can come up with any ideas why. This fits in very nicely with the current curriculum and helps the children with numeracy, literacy and scientific investigation skills. We are very much looking forward to this project.

The plants were part of a grant received from Henllys Community Council and we are grateful for their support.

Friends of Henllys LNR and 1st Henlys Scouts batter the balsam

28 volunteers braved driving rain to pull up a vast area of balsam on Henllys Local Nature Reserve. The event was part of a 3-way balsam puling competition between us, Keep Wales Tidy in Cardiff and conservation volunteers with Tim Sykes from the Environment Agency on the River Cadnam in the New Forest.
The bar was set high earlier in the day with 6 piles totalling 2m in the New Forest, but a 2.5 m (h) x 4 m (w) pile in Cardiff.

 

At the start

Our volunteers were built from Friends of Henllys LNR volunteers heavily bolstered by scouts, beavers, cubs, leaders and parents who worked like troopers over 1.5 hours. The area was dominated by balsam on an area of the reserve we have been unable to tackle in the past as there was just too much of it. However, with the huge numbers we had, we cleared an amazing area using the wheelbarrow to transport the pulled up balsam to the ever increasing central balsam pile. With only 10 minutes to go we started to build up the height to try and get as close to 2.5m as possible and stopped at a precarious 6ft 8 or 2.003m high. We also noticed it looked like a dalek, so gave it twig arms and an antenna for the final photo (balsam art).

 

part the way through

Just like last time, everyone was wet muddy, but certainly Friends of Henllys LNR were extremely grateful for the help from 1st Henllys Scouts who helped us to do an area which our small group would have tackled over in two weeks but we did it in 1 night.

10 minutes before the end

The competition made it very exciting too and we reckon we can build on this next year into something even better with more groups taking part across the country. Well done to both Cardiff and the New Forest Groups.

2.03m high balsam pile

Our Himalayan balsam dalek

 

links to all pics on Flickr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjGywo8X

The Big Pull

Foolhardily, I challenged @TimSykesEA to a Himalayan balsam pulling day on July 2nd. I then asked if Richard Weaver, Keep Wales Tidy's Cardiff Officer if he'd like to join in too. So at 6 pm anyone is invited to come along to Henllys LNR to see if we can pull up loads of Himalayan balsam and make the tallest pile, hopefully not finishing last, the more the merrier. Just bring gloves and suitable clothing.

Meet: 6 pm July 2nd 2013.
Location: Car Park off Birch Grove, NP44 6EP.

1st Henllys Scouts will be coming along too and now they know what they are doing after Monday's efforts, we may well get a bigger pile this time for pics see here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjG93kWv .

 

 

 

Next Event, this Thursday 13th June @7pm and some other useful information.

Thursday 13th June at 7 pm, meet Car Park off Birch Grove, NP44 6EP.

Event: Himalayan Balsam pull
Date: Thursday 13th June at 7pm.
Meeting Point: Henllys LNR Car Park

We'll be tackling Himalayan balsam for the first time this year and looking at where we have had success over the last 4 pulling seasons.

Bring gardening gloves if you have them, sturdy good gripped shoes or wellies/waders if going into the stream.

Contact Chris on 07824504813 or friendsofhenllyslnr@gmail.com for more details or if you are planning on joining us.

The pond is starting to look pretty good regarding pond life, the picture shows a beautiful blue darter dragonfly, which almost met its Waterloo to a sparrow. The lower pond also has tadpoles, late stage, and loads of different types of diving and skating beetles.

 

There are lots of nice flowers around at the minute to take our minds off the Himalayan balsam which is creeping up in height in many places of the reserve. One such plant is ragged robin, which really enjoys having its feet wet.

 

There are some places which are recovering very nicely after our previous 4 seasons of pulling the balsam and they are looking pretty good:

The lower streams of the reserve look particularly bad this year and we may concentrate on these sections this year, hopefully with some help from Coed Eva and Henllys Church in Wales Primary Schools and the Henllys Scouts. However, anyone is welcome to come along and either join in with us, or pull some up on your own. Just remember, pull it up cleanly, bend it in half, Chineese burn it and put it in as big a pile as possible.