We're back

Autumn 2021

 The global Covid-19 pandemic put a temporary halt to our regular Wednesday volunteering sessions at Gibside, but now we're back. 

 Some of the projects the "A-Team" have been involved in are documented below.

Dam building in West Wood

Clearing Beech Saplings - Snipes Dene

It was about ten years ago that much of Snipes Dene was clear felled. There was some replanting with native trees early on but mainly, for the next couple of years, it stood bare. Apart, that is, from the hundreds of thousands of Western Hemlock saplings that sprung up  everywhere. Spread out in a line across the hillside, the Wednesday team (and other people)  combed the valley, yanking out seedlings and more substantial plants as we went. We did that repeatedly and, if memory serves correctly, quite enjoyed it. Destruction is our thing you see: conservation through pulling things up and chopping things down.

 After a slow start, natural regeneration had more than done its bit. Now, some years later, we are back there again sawing down trees and pulling up saplings in order to enlarge a clearing we had cut from the dense birch woodland that had moved in. Creating clearings encourages a wider variety of habitats and, in turn, a wider variety of flora and fauna.

A typical beech sapling

Wild bilberry on floor of wood

Hard Fern

Bark-ringing of a large beech tree

After bark-ringing of a tree, the tree will gradually die to create a standing dead wood which will provide valuable habitat for various insects and nesting birds.

Creating a glade in Snipes Dene

Part of Snipes Dene has become overgrown with silver birch. A glade has been created by felling some of the birch trees, this provides an open area and will encourage different flora to flourish.

Volunteers hard at work

A well earned rest

White coral slime mould

Trametes versicolor

Leaf clearing

A recurrent task every autumn.

Clearing leaves from a drainage ditch

One cleared drainage ditch

Leaf blowing in Market Square ...

... and after

More tree felling - creating a wildlife corridor

Again a visit to Snipes Dene felling silver birch in a line down into the dene. This will create a corridor for wildlife but also be an aid to removing larger trees (should this ever be necessary) back up the sides of the dene where they can be dragged up by horse.

The wildlife corridor

Daldinia sp. on old tree trunk

To be continued ...

Steve Wootten & Phil Coyne