What to look out for on the Park in January.

 Along Oak Walk, find a Lime tree, and Ash tree and a Horse Chestnut tree. Identify them from their bark and buds.

Lime bark and bud.

Ash bark and bud.

Horse Chestnut bark and bud.

Find areas of molehills. It will be one mole per area of molehills. So how many moles to think we might have on the Park?

Find the old veteran Lime tree which has finally collapsed. Find the mistletoe still growing on one of the live limbs.

Look for signs of rabbits. Find these small holes that they have dug and marked with dung pellets. Look out for areas of dead grass which they marked with pellets and urine. See if you can identify the rabbit trackway across the grassland.

Find places where rabbits have stripped the bark from small fallen branches.

Listen for a Robin singing. Copy the link into your browser to hear a Robin singing on the Park.

https://youtu.be/ZJupAjJOgQc

Find an Elder Tree (look in the top left corner of the dog training enclosure) and look for the first signs of bud burst.

Pishiobury Park. Springhall Field Hedge Project.

 The old Field hedge around Spring Hall Field is largely derelict. There are lots of gaps and places where failed hedge shrub plantings have taken place some years ago. There are some older Hawthorns and old Hazels. It is possible that the Hazels go back to the time of Thomas Rivers when they were planted to provide sticks and poles for use on the Nursery. The plan is to carry out a biodiversity study of the hedge, coppice the Hazels and plant up the gaps with young shrubs next year. A short film on You Tube shows wasps and bees feeding on the Ivy over growing some of the Hawthorns. The first work party was on 16th of December where we have started coppicing the Hazels and clearing away some of the dead wood to make eco-piles.

https://youtu.be/MDU-HnE-sr4      for wasps and bees feeding on the Ivy.

Old Hazel with barbed wire inter- grown.

                            The derelict hedge.

Old Hawthorn covered in Ivy

                    Failed earlier plantings.

We have got to be careful when coppicing the Hazel.

            Six of us attended the first work party.

Starting work.

We are going to have to cut the Hazels quite high to avoid the barbed wire.

Making sure the worksite is left neat and tidy ready for the next time.