27.11.11 Willow coppicing and Bank stabilisation

Six volunteers, including two new volunteers carried on the work start by a group from HSBC as a partner Keep Wales Tidy Event on the LNR. The two new vols, Becky and Ruth, are work colleagues and the latter came out on the LNR on that HSBC workday.

The plan for today was to coppice a few more willow stools, process all the material for either willow bundles or for living stakes. We improved upon the work from last time by making a simple frame for the bundles to be placed upon, which made it easier to pass the wire underneath the bundles.

Willow being dragged the hard way across to the processing area by Beau (watched closely by Mum).

Ruth cutting the willow to length.

Tricia wiring a bundle.

Staking a bundle into place.

Two bundles staked on top of each other to divert water around a downstream beech tree. The water was already being diverted away from the soft bank so this looks good.

Slideshow.

Cheers to TCBC Countryside Service for continued support, permission and for purchasing the wire for the fascines.

New Ponds and Bank Erosion

Many of you will have noticed that there are a couple of new additions to the local nature reserve in the form of new ponds. Both of these are found on the site at the end of Juniper Crescent and were created as part of the South East Wales Wetlands Project in partnership with Environment Agency Wales and Ponds Conservation. Hopefully, in time they will be naturalised with plantlife (an area heavilly populated by sedges, reeds and alder), by insect life and hopefully for newts and to support more bats.

The ponds appear to be filling quite nicely, but management of Himalayan balsam here may be a problem, so we will have to wait until next summer to find out.

Recently, we did a trial bank stabilisation event with HSBC using coppiced willow into bundles. The good news is that the willow bundles are still there. The problem is that the drain is already fully blocked up and the water back filling again. It seems that this is a big part of the erosion problem. Moreover, it seems that there is a stream leading down to the drain from the oppisite direction to the stream itself and this will eventually undermine the concrete drain itself. We also found an area part the way along the the stream where the bank is being seriously eroded across the path and this is creating a really dangerous crevice. There are several pictures in the following slideshow showing all of these problems.



I met up with Jon the Woodland Ranger back in work after his sabbatical and we talked about some of these issues and we hope to come up with a proactive and reactive plan.

Don't forget the next event is this Sunday (27th Nov) at 10am meeting at the Car Park off Birch Grove performing more bankstabilisation and coppicing.

Willow Coppicing and HSBC saving the banks

Sunday saw 9 volunteers from HSBC in Newport helped to coppice a small area of willow in a corner of the reserve as part of a rescue package for the stream banks.

Firstly, they were given a short health and safety talk followed by tool care and handling. We then walked through the reserve giving the vols a brief description of the Local Nature Reserve's history, habitats, wildlife and conservation issues. One such issue involved the banks of the drains being eroded to such an extent that the most mature trees on the reserve were threatened by bank collapse. One incident has already happened where a large sycamore fell across the stream where its roots where soil around some of its roots were washed away. This was recently cut up by TCBC's Woodland Ranger and vols. However, there are several trees including some magnificent beech trees which are also under threat. The idea for today’s work was to perform some bank stabilisation by making willow bundles which are staked into the bank with living willow, which would hopefully root and decrease future erosion.

The coppicing involved cutting the willow, in clumps called a stool, as close to the ground as possible with saws.

The wood was then taken to the processing area where it was cleaned and cut to length for the fascines, really curly wood was left in a pile for later. Bundles of willow of about 6 foot length were tied using wire into long sausages called fascines.

Meanwhile some willow stakes were made from thicker pieces of cut willow that were not so useful for the fascines. The wood was cut to a spike at one end using billhooks. Nearby, a small group litterpicked the area where we were working and we collected 3 bags of rubbish (throughout the day). We then looked at the drain which was completely blocked with silt (much of this from the eroding bank) although we could hear a trickle somewhere. Dave mainly set to this with a Chillington hoe and some muscle.

We took some nearby logs to make a retaining wall for some of this collected silt and staked these into place. Right next to the drain on the hill, we dug a small hole which formed the base of the amphibian hibernaculum.

Once finished all the useless brash was piled in here and this was filled over with the dug up earth.

Finally, we made 3-fascines altogether and three of us slopped our way across the silty stream and staked the willow fascines into place.

For all of this we used material from just 5 willow stools covering a very small area.

Everyone had a great time and we look forward to the next one. which is pencilled on for Sunday 27th November 2011 at 10.30 am.