Archive pictures from the 1970s.

 Here are some scanned 35mm colour slides taken of the Park in the 1970s.

The first one is a view looking north towards Nursery Wood. On the sledging slope there was a landscape Elm and a Horse Chestnut in full bloom. In the distance you can see the large Cedar of Lebanon and Nursery Wood.

Now the Horse Chestnut has fallen over. It died because the bark was eaten off by horses which used to graze on the Park. The Elm tree has gone because it caught Dutch Elm disease. Nursery Wood has disappeared because all the Elms have been cut down and in the next picture you can see a herd of black-and-white cattle in the distance which used to graze on the Park.

As ever, the Park was a popular place for sledging. You can see snow on the roofs of houses in East Park.

Here are some landscape Elms near to the bridge and ditch. The bridge was not there of course. The Park lost a lot of landscape trees at this time. The next picture shows a huge tree that has been felled in the South East corner of the Park and the sawn trunk. The timber was perfectly sound but the trees had all died because of the fungal infection spread by the bark beetles.

This is the spring area which at this time was completely open to the cattle and was surrounded by large Poplar trees.

And finally, here is the newly constructed car park when the Park was purchased by East Herts District Council in 1980.

Monday 27th September 2021.

 This may well be one of the last mild early autumn days on the Park. A few of the trees are just starting to show autumn colour.

I found a Queen bumblebee nestling down into the grass where she will spend the winter buried in the grassroots.

 Surprisingly, there were some dragonflies hawking about in the sunshine. I think that they were faded Brown Hawkers and must be near the end of their lifespan.

I was pleased to find a native six spot Ladybird.

And on a sun warmed log there were a Wasp, and a flesh fly.

I spotted a Comma Butterfly feeding on one of the few remaining Thistle flowers.

One of the older Oak trees has got a large bracket fungus growing out of the base and it also has two bat roost boxes.

This year, the Oak trees have not produced hardly any acorns. They do this occasionally as not every year is a full fruiting year. Any acorns that did form have been parasitised by a small wasp which lays an egg in the flower bud causing it to form a Knopper Gall, the wasp larva feeds inside the gall.

A familiar gall on Oak is the Oak Apple. You do not seem to notice them until the wasp grub has hatched and left through a tiny circular hole. Once again the adult wasp lays eggs into the developing buds which developed into the 'Apple'.

Another two galls on Oak leaves are the pretty Silk Button Gall once again caused by a tiny wasp and the Spangle Gall.

And finally I couldn't leave without taking a picture of some of the beautiful, bright Hawthorn berries we have on the Park this year.

 History Group investigation Wednesday 1st September 2021.

The group decided to investigate a rectangular hollow just to the east of Oak Walk. The hollow shows up clearly on LIDAR.

We used a soil auger to make boreholes along a 40 m transect across the hollow.

As the sediments were extracted we laid them out in lengths of rainwater guttering. 

We classified the soils using a Munsell Soil Colour Chart and the average value was 10YR 6/6. We also carried out a 'Dirty Hands Test' which showed us that the soil is a silt/clay loam.

The conclusion was that most of the area is underlain by Chalky Boulder Clay which has been very deeply weathered in post glacial times. There appears to have been a thick layer of gravel laid over the top of the clay along the line of Oak Walk. We could find no evidence of either a pond or a garden as had been suggested. The conclusion was that soil had been moved from the sloping ground to the east and used to level up Oak Walk to make it easier, safer and more comfortable for coaches, carriages and carts. See diagram. 

Insects and other invertebrates demonstrate the value of Bramble on bloom.

 Just entering the second week in August much of the Bramble blossom has gone over but there is still enough remaining to interest a large number of insects.

                                                                    Bumblebees.

                                                    Lots of different types of Hover fly.

                                                                        Honeybees.

                                                        Red ants probably collecting nectar.

                                                                                Red Admiral.

                                                                        Meadow Brown.

                                                        A spider waiting in its sheet web.    

                

                                                                    Comma butterfly.

Pishiobury Park Declared as a Local Nature Reserve

 Finally, after a long wait the Park has at long last been declared as a Local Nature Reserve. The Declaration has been strongly supported by Natural England. What it means is that Friends of Pishiobury Park can now start to organise events, visits and educational activities to inform all sections of the community of the wildlife, history and geology of this very special site.