Past, present and future Dalby

We had a great task this morning. We cleared vegetation (mostly pine saplings) off a section of one of the many scheduled (protected) archaeological features that sit within the forest. In this case, it was a post medieval enclosure/ boundary, which probably sits upon an even older pattern of land division dating back to the prehistoric period. The bank and ditch feature has not been excavated, so keeping it clear of tree saplings means the stratigraphical information it contains remains intact and preserved and is part of the long term management of the feature. Bit more of a busman’s holiday than usual for me this time since my day job is in archaeology!

Little frogs, beautiful clusters of fungi and birds’ nests provided some extra highlights.

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Cooling off under the trees

Today’s worktask was thankfully in the cool under the trees at the Enchanted Wood at Dalby Forest. The Enchanted Wood is a natural play area that we help to look after that is specifically for the under 5s. We replenished materials in the barefoot walk, repaired parts of the stone wall & remade the nature art area. The woodland tiny folk have also moved in! Can you find all their doors on your next visit?

Cooling off under the trees at the Barefoot walk

Nature art area

Little door. There are 5 in total. Can you find them all?

Making Drinking Pools for Turtle Doves

It was a beautiful sunny morning in the forest as we embarked on our work task and latest project – Drinking Pools for Turtle Doves. Mattocks and spades were the tools of choice (it was quite stony!) as we made the first of a series of drinking pools.

The Turtle Dove is one of our most threatened breeding birds, and it has suffered a very serious decline in the UK. There are various pressures on them such as unsustainable shooting on their migration route, habitat loss in their wintering grounds but also a lack of breeding success here.

Once they return to the UK (usually from late April), Turtle Doves rely on water – much more than other farmland birds. This is because their chicks are fed a ‘crop milk’ of water and seed, so it’s important that they have access to summer-long clean water sources with walk-in access. FoDF will be making a series of drinking pools to support the population that we know returns to nest every year in Dalby.

We banked up unused spoil alongside one side of the pool and sowed it with wildflower seeds which should encourage some butterflies later in the summer.

Thanks to everyone who came along today! A brilliant effort!

A special shout out should go to all the bird watchers who took part in this year’s ‘Michael Clegg bird race’ which raised the funds to allow us to get the tools and materials for the pools and get the project off the ground.

If you would like to support our bird projects, then you can donate to our GoFundMe . https://www.gofundme.com/f/Support-the-Birds-of-Dalby-Forest

Christmas 2021 work task

No helping with the Christmas tree sales or festive crafts for us this year, but it did mean we had our first December work task ever! This year we spent it at the maze which was new to a few people including Andrew who is joining us as part of his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award.

It was very muddy (as usual) but we had mince pies at break time and managed to prep more areas and clear paths as the last circle starts to take shape.

Merry Christmas!

Clearing the paths: before and after. Muddy work.

Mark plus a happy band of muddy volunteers at the maze

Barefoot walk (pt 2) with a spot of forest bathing

Thanks to all the volunteers who turned out early on a sunny morning for a task at the Enchanted Wood, we have finished off the barefoot walk we started last month. We added two new sections of gravel and pine cones (apparently not quite as torturous as it looks!).

We also rebuilt a section of wall, installed a bench and laid out a platform for a spot of forest bathing, ably demonstrated here by Martin! We also welcomed new volunteers Ruth and Andy.

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A new barefoot walk

Thanks to all the volunteers who turned out to our work task this morning where we have started a barefoot sensory walk in the Enchanted Wood at Adderstone.

There are now sections with bark, sand, straw, large pebbles, connected with stepping logs and stones. We will be adding new sections for small stones, a mud area, and maybe even pine cones at a future work task.

Alongside the path, we also installed some cute metal bird sculptures. Hope you like the new additions!

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Buttercup-wrangling in the Forest Garden!

January saw us back to work in the forest garden and tackling the buttercups that were strangling some of the plants and taking over the paths. Some lovely pics courtesy of Michael Hill. We will continue to meet on the second Sunday of every month so if you want to do some volunteering in 2019 then come and join us!  https://friendsofdalbyforest.wordpress.com/about/

Forest Garden

Forest Garden

Forest Garden

Forest Garden

September work task in the forest garden

Thank you to all the volunteers who came along to the work task this morning. There were only 6 of us but it felt like we achieved a lot.

We laid a membrane to suppress the weeds in the area behind the cafe at the courtyard (it’s very stony so that seemed the best way to kill off the weeds). We will work in this area next year as it is technically also part of the forest garden. We have lots of strawberries and currants to plant there.

In addition, we built a bug house (hotel?) with some pallets kindly donated by Mark from the maze . There are so many insects in the garden especially ladybirds and beetles at the moment, so we hope they enjoy their new accommodation!

 

 

Hot July but it’s the weather for ducks in August

A few hardy volunteers got a bit sweaty for July’s work task in the Enchanted Wood, erecting a new fence to maintain the boundary of the Enchanted Wood (our brash fence was simply too tempting for den builders). August sees our annual fundraiser the Duck Dash. Sunday 5th August from 11am (tickets on sale from c10am). Hope you can come along!

 

Frosty work task at Ellerburn

Thank you to everyone who came out this morning under an amazing blue sky but frosty underfoot for our worktask today.

We removed the tree tubes from the hedge saplings we planted a few years ago along the Ellerburn trail. We had a great turn out, one of the largest of the year and also welcomed new volunteer Janet.

New hedge at Ellerburn

New hedge at Ellerburn