Creating an otter holt between two community groups

14 volunteers came out together on this lovely Saturday morning to help construct an otter holt on Henllys Local Nature Reserve. The event was hugely bolstered by Cardiff Trail Scrubs coming over to Torfaen to help out on their last ever Community Group event.

The materials for the project were previously cut down and stacked from an adjacent thinning out of trees as part of the management plan performed by Torfaen County Borough Council's (TCBC) only Woodlands and Education Ranger Jon Howells, Henllys LNR volunteer Chris Partridge and TCBC volunteer John Adkins.

The group had to sort out the materials, find a suitable spot for the holt and then transport and build the holt. The site which was chosen was across a stream which was safely passable in one place. All the volunteers organised themselves into teams and received training in the various hand tools and only backed up with my chainsaw where necessary.

 The event was also a chance to use the new loppers and secateurs purchased from a Keep Wales Tidy voucher scheme for the first time. They were purchased for exactly this kind of occasion where there were quite a few volunteers and nobody this time was left waiting around for tools.

 As the larger logs were brought over and put into place, 2 teams were furiously making stakes using saws and spiking them with an axe or billhook.

These were knocked into the ground with a hedging maul to help us to build up the walls. A similar technique was used to build up the inner maze.

Once all the walls were finished, all hands were employed to build up the roofing with brash layered at 90 degree angles to make it as weather proof as possible.

David 8 said " I liked pretending to be an otter and helping to make the stake using Richard's little axe"

Chris from Friends of Henllys LNR said "We are a small group and extremely grateful to Cardiff Trails Scrubs and Richard Weaver for coming all the way over here from Cardiff to do this on their very last event too. We are also grateful to TCBC for continuing to give us support, encouragement and permissions to carrying on performing conservation activities which are not normally possible under their limited resources. It really helps in partnership to improve management of local green spaces."

Joint event on the LNR with Cardiff Trail Scrubs

The next event on Henllys LNR will take place on Saturday 26th October at 10 am meeting at the Car Park off Birch Grove (NP44 6EP).

 

We are privileged to be joined by Cardiff Trail Scrubs who are coming to Henllys LNR on their very last community group event. They came out with us just before they formed a couple of years ago and it is apt that they are coming out with us again.

 

There are multiple activity options depending on the weather conditions including willow coppicing, fascine construction and installation or otter holt construction.

 

All you need to bring are sturdy footwear and clothing suitable for the conditions.

 

We have some gloves for adults from the recent WG Tidy Towns Grant, loads of children's gloves from a Keep Wales Tidy Grant. We will also be using loppers from a Keep Wales Tidy Grant and hopefully some saws will have arrived from the WG Tidy Towns Grant.

 

All training with tools will be given.

ps here is a picture showing our stand of Japanese knotweed just over 2 weeks afer stem injecting it with glyphosate:

There is just one very small stem with green leaves on it which either wasn't injected or injected efficiently. Overall, it has seemed to work really well without damaging nearby vegetation.

Nice little Christmas present, one for your calendar

Keep Wales Tidy have been a big supporter of Friends of Henllys LNR over the years with insurance, equipment grants and the use of some of their tools for activities. They have been celebrating their 40th anniversary with a range of activities including a photo competition “What I love about Wales”.

The winning 12 pictures have been included in Keep Wales Tidy’s first ever calendar. This 2014 calendar is being sold in the run up to Christmas to raise funds, so that KWT can continue to support community groups and schools across Wales with their ongoing environmental work.

The 12 pictures are fantastic and capture the beauty of Wales throughout the year and serves as a reminder to why we spend so much time and effort doing our bit to help make Wales a better place to live.

Each calendar has ample space to add notes and costs only £7.50. You can arrange to buy the calendar directly from me, Chris Partridge, via friendsofhenllyslnr@gmail.com or 07824504813. I can deliver locally in Henllys/Coed Eva or meet you on the LNR.

 

Funny weather upsets our invasive plants & stem injecting knotweed

We had some late frosts this year and an almost unheard of very prolonged and hot summer. This meant that our dominant invasive friend, Himalayan balsam, came out to play later than usual and really struggled in the heat, wilting pathetically in July. Sadly, the inevitable rains came down and the balsam went up. Furthermore, the long mildish late Autumn with good spells of sunshine and rain has brought up an abundance of small Himalayan balsam. Speaking to a colleague in Cardiff this was also happening in Cardiff in late August. After a walkabout on our Nature Reserve late on this evening I was amazed to see more little balsam plants out in flower on the second of October. The common mantra is don't pull or cut late in the season (very late August or early September) here I was pulling it up happy in the knowledge that there were no ready seed pods. Even some left over bigger plants had seed pods yielding with much effort white, unripe seeds. So I imagine those people who have given up for the year are advised to take one last look especially along or near waterways and pull them up.

7 inch high Himalayan balsam in flower Oct 2nd.

We have 1 Japanese knotweed stand as well which has been treated by Torfaen Council Ranger Jon Howells and volunteers for the past 3 years. It is now a small stand of only 15 or so stems. The summer heat and dry soil has almost killed the plant with leaves for much of the year being yellowish rather than a vibrant green. However, the sudden wetness with sunshine has brought parts of the plant back to life with little green leaves emerging in October. On a few stems the plant has just come into flower almost a month after most over plants found abundantly throughout Torfaen.

OUR SICKLY LOOKING KNOTWEED STAND (UNTREATED APART FROM A GOOD DROUGHT)

Some small green leaves coming through with small flower bracts

One stem with no leaves and flowers emerging

The plan on Friday morning is to treat the Japanese knotweed with herbicide (glyphosate) with a technique called stem injection. Japanese knotweed stems resemble bamboo with hollow stems. The stem injector has a needle with the hole not at the end like a drug needle, but part the way along.

The hole of the needle is on the side to help prevent blockages and safe infusion into the hollow stem

This means when you put it into the stem it doesn't get blocked and when you depress the syringe trigger it empties into the stem. For Japanese knotweed the best way of doing this is just below the 3rd node above ground level. The plant then takes the glyphosate down into the rhizomes where it starts to kill the plant. The best time of the year to do this is when the plants are at terminal height and when the plant is in flower. Like we discussed earlier, you have to go off the plant not a set date in the calendar and this year for this clump it is very late. This stand was much bigger in previous years and it has been sprayed in the past. This is the usual method for large stands, but you need to be much more careful with weather conditions i.e. not very windy and dry. You are also much more likely to get some drift onto nearby plants which may kill them too. This isn't always a terrible thing as you need to get close to the plants to be able to treat them. With Stem injections the weather is less of an influence, it just takes a lot longer as each stem is injected. Furthermore, you normally spray with a 3-4% glyphosate solution, stem injections are normally 1 ml of neat or 2ml of 50% strength glyphosate so is a much less efficient way of introducing glyphosate into the plant.

Stem injecting a small knotweed stem, Fri 4th Oct 2013

Importantly, when using herbicides you still need the right training, or to be working with someone who is properly trained if you are working on public or someone else's land (PA1, PA6 and if near water PA6W). As the LNR is publicly owned, permission was granted from Torfaen County Borough Council (TCBC) to do this. We are using a little of TCBC's glyphosate for the treatment and one of Keep Wales Tidy's stem injector kits; a nice example of partnership working. There are many volunteer groups across Wales who are now supporting local authorities to tackle invasive species which has to be a better way of tackling these especially in these difficult economic times and we are proud to be doing our part in this.