The Three Pillars

Posted on January 11, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

A Path For Everyone

Creating a path that is accessible for walkers, cyclists, joggers, families, pushchairs, mobility buggies. Wide enough so people can pass comfortably or walk two abreast, can see far enough ahead so as not to feel intimidated, plenty of benches to stop at and rest. Areas for youth and areas for families to enjoy a picnic. Geocaching and dino trail activities. Duke of Edinburgh Bronze, Silver and Gold Award Assessor.

A Wildlife Corridor

Joined up habitat for wildlife. Plenty of sunshine and clearings for wildflowers. Bird boxes and bat boxes. A bird feeding station. Biodiversity is maximised by continual clearing of scrubby bramble.

A Safe Place For Mental Wellbeing

Doing the workdays with a positive purpose, a reason, and a goal, is so good for mental health. But just using the greenway to walk or cycle, to have a little less screen time and a little more green time is so good for all of us. Connecting with nature reduces stress and anxiety.

So today I donned my hi-viz and went for the ultimate thrill of an hour on the brush cutter. My hands are still tingling some five hours later!

We need a nicely widened path with a decent transition from path to short grass, to longer grass and wildflowers, to scrub and trees so wildlife can move in and out easily. We also need to get rid of the overhanging branches and cut windows on the south-easterly side to allow lots of sunlight in.

Next week is just bow-saws, loppers and pole-saws. It’s gonna be a tough one!!

We also did a little bit of maintenance on our Bilton Grange underpass mural…

Remember, there are various ways to support the project. The best thing is to come along and get involved, but if that doesn’t work for you, please consider becoming a Patron. Just £2 a month multiplied by 40 or so people means more of the good stuff, or make a one off donation via our crowdfunding page or the “buy me a coffee” link on the side. Everything helps us enormously and it will give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Thank you to all who have, and continue to, support the project.

Lastly, you can get some Cawston Greenway merchandise to impress your friends and family with. Imagine going for a walk along the path in the summer and then heading back home and enjoying a coffee in one of our mugs…

What a fantastic talking point!! Just visit the shop on the right.

Until next week!

Paul

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Welcome to Season 14

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Yes, you read that right – our 14th year of keeping the path open for everyone.

That’s as many seasons as The Great British Bake Off.

Pretty amazing stuff and a double-bonus because food is always close to my heart!!

This week we finished off the underpass wildflower clearing, a delightfully sheltered suntrap with a bench to rest and enjoy a cuppa.

Whilst the westerly side did well last summer, the easterly side struggled with wildflowers. We can get some shade loving seeds to try and have a better go this summer. We started a dead-hedge to create a border and transition from the scrubby bramble, to the wildflower mini-meadow. This gives insect larva something to burrow into and then habitat to live in when they become adult insects.

A view from above.

And our YouTube for people who prefer to see a video.

This month is pretty bleak for a lot of people, with short and cold days, long nights, and the massive come-down from Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The third Monday of January is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year and has been dubbed “Blue Monday” because of this. So, as always, come and join in. It will lift your spirits doing something with purpose and a goal. There’s always plenty to do, from putting up bird-boxes to hunting for fungi…

  • Turkey Tail Fungus
  • Velvet Foot
  • Bracket Fungus

There really is something for everyone…

Next week we are carrying on northwards from the underpass, making the path wider and cutting scallops into the side that gets the most sunshine, and also adding to our dead-hedges with the cuttings.

Until then!

Paul

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Last workday for 2022

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Well, we finally got here! Lots of things learnt or re-learnt over the year as we try to keep the three pillars of what we do equally balanced.

A path for everyone

A nature trail for wildlife

A safe place for mental wellbeing

Today we cleared out the west side of the underpass clearing, pushed the scrub back by a couple of foot, and created a bit of a dead-hedge for insect habitat and larva to burrow into.

This is before:-

And after:-

This area is an absolute suntrap in the summer and will benefit from all the seeds dropping from the wildflowers last summer, plus we can over-seed it with some of the local seeds that I collected in the autumn.

Our YouTube of the area for those who prefer video to a slideshow:-

Next week we are in the same place doing work on the east side, and then we work towards Berrybanks making the path nice and wide, with deep scallops cut into west side as it curves eastwards and becomes almost south facing.

Until next time!

Paul

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Another chilly one…

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Bloomin’ heck!! Another absolutely freezing day today. However, after the first half hour we were starting to get a little warm under the collar!!

As stated in last week’s blog, there is an abandoned bench somewhere at the bottom of the embankment. Rugby Borough Council gave us two pairs of A-frames to make picnic benches, probably 12 or so years ago. One got destroyed by fire, and one went missing. Today we were on a mission to find the missing bench. The wooden seats and table-top had totally rotted away, a tree had fallen on top of it and one of the A-frames has minimal fire damage. But we got them up…

I kid you not, these bad boys weigh a ton!! They are made out of recycled car tyres. I have seen some abandoned wood that we can use to make new seats and a table-top. It will be nice to get further use out of them, and for free, too.

We also did some work on the snowdrop clearing.

The snowdrops on the inside edge of the path get trampled ever since the increased traffic happened during the COVID lockdowns, and daily exercise options.

What we have done is create habitat piles to try to gently push people back into the centre of the path, so the snowdrops have a chance to reach maturity and hopefully spread to create a white carpet in the early part of the year.

We want to encourage bramble and ivy to grow over the piles to make them more permanent. Yes, you heard that right – we want to encourage bramble growth!!

A robin redbreast was hopping around today inspecting our work. He seemed happy enough.

Here is our YouTube of the area…

Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you like, or you can “buy me a coffee” via the yellow button on the side, or do both… It keeps us with a little bit of cash to do stuff.

No greenway workday next week due to Christmas (Merry Christmas, everyone). But we are back the following Wednesday after Christmas for our last workday of 2022!!

Until then!

Paul

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Thank goodness for hot coffee!!

Posted on December 7, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

Has Winter started? I never know if it’s the 1st or 21st of December… But whichever way you look at it, it was a cold day today…

We made superb progress today and have the whole of the southern part of the path, that’s in cutting, wide enough to avoid the muddy puddles in January and February.

We also did a litter-pick. We need to return in the early part of next year to cut back the overhanging trees and also thin the canopy to increase sunlight and biodiversity.

Next week we are meeting at the snowdrop bench and trying to shape the path to stop people trampling the snowdrops when they start popping up. There is also an old bench that has been thrown down the bank years ago. I think it could be worth seeing if we can pull it back up and get it back into service.

Then we have Christmas.

And then we have the last workday of the year. We move into the stretch between the underpass and Berrybanks. The path curves to the east here so the west embankment gets lots of sunlight. We need to widen the path and create deep scallops. After Berrybanks the path really looks after itself so we can crack on with putting up birdboxes and prepping the areas that will need wildflower seeding in March.

Until next time!

Paul

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Finally moving on…

Posted on November 30, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

It feels like we’ve been stuck on this section for an eternity! Today we got to the point where we are able to move to the next section…

We did a last brush cut of the cleared higher path and just had a general tidy up.

We also fixed the picnic bench.

It’s not perfectly flat, but it’s functional, as we found out when we had our coffee and cookie break.

Some Fungi finds today:-

  • Shaggy Mane
  • Candlesnuff
  • Jelly Ear

And of course our butterfly embankment is ready for seeding with a meadow grass and wildflower mix, plus all the kidney vetch seeds that I have collected this year.

We still need to thin the trees casting shadow, but that is a job for January when all the berries have gone. We will put a bench in on the other side of the path so people can sit and watch the butterfly activity next summer. It will be superb.

This week I visited Wappenbury Wood, a site managed by Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, just to make sure that we are on the same page in terms of looking after the woodland aspect of our nature trail.

It’s a boggy and wet path which shows why we need to keep the width of ours wide and dry, or people will simply not use it.

Well that’s about it for this week. Please PATRON PATRON PATRON (top righthand of blog!) even if it’s just a couple of quid a month. Seeding the butterfly clearing will cost £52, Fixing the picnic bench is £5 for screws (luckily I scrounged the wood batons), the bench for the butterfly clearing will be £12 for the wood and £4 for the postfix… But on the flip side – come along and join in… I really cannot stress how good this is for mental wellbeing!!

Until next week!

Paul

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Now you see why…

Posted on November 23, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

With the heavy and what seems like continual rain over the last few weeks, you can see why we clear off the higher ballast path…

It gives people the option not to have to walk through the muddy puddles. It also removes the spent wildflowers, bramble and self-seeded tree saplings. If we leave these, the ground becomes more fertile so nettles and bramble will flourish and crowd out less competitive wildflowers and eventually, become dense scrub. I also litter picked between the quadrant benches and the bird feeder clearing.

Whilst I do enjoy working on this section of the greenway, I am starting to feel like we are a bit bogged-down here. What’s left to do? We need to cut deep scallops into the west side of the path, remove the overhanging tree branches, seed the butterfly bank with a meadow grass and wildflower mix, thin out the tree canopy on both sides, and fix the picnic bench.

I plan to do a session on Thursday morning and the same on Friday morning this week, just to crack on a bit. If anyone wants to pop along, feel free.

To keep us on the right track, I always try to visit a wood, or a forest, or nature reserve every week.

This week I was at a Butterfly Conservation site.

This area is absolutely buzzing with butterflies, bees, and loads of other insects in the summer due to the carefully managed grassland and wildflower habitat.

It’s what I hope our butterfly embankment starts to look like next year.

Usual mental wellbeing message – join in if you need company, bring biscuits and we will love you forever! Things seem very bleak for a lot of people at the moment. We always have a bit of a laugh doing what we do with purpose and vision.

Until next time!

Paul

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Butterfly Bank

Posted on November 16, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

More work on the butterfly bank today. It’s looking good as far as I can tell…

It needs to be sheltered grassland habitat so the scrub on the side will act as a barrier and the dead-hedge at the top will also offer a bit of shelter from prevailing south-westerly winds.

There will be a load of seeds in the soil already but we may need to pull out what we don’t want.

What we need is grass and kidney vetch, but we also have to kinda work with what nature gives us.

I draw a lot of inspiration and knowledge from sites managed by Warwickshire Butterfly Conservation, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and The Woodland Trust, to name but a few. It’s always useful to see what they are up to.

Bubbenhall Wood showing glades, rides and scrub management.

Until next week!

Paul

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Look what I discovered!

Posted on November 12, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

More work on the butterfly clearing.

Where we started clearing last week, we have nettles popping up!! What we want is grasses and kidney vetch wildflowers. It’s early days and there is still a load of scrub to clear. It’s starting to slowly take shape though. We will probably clear about ten metres along, dead-hedge the top, thin the trees to allow maximum sunlight and see what grows in the spring of next year.

We can put a bench in on the other side for relaxed viewing.

I had a cheeky coffee break and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

I then took a walk northwards and happened upon a new bench that must have been put in by Andrew (thank you)!!

The view is fantastic and the birdboxes in the trees around the bench will make this a year round favourite spot.

We are back in the butterfly clearing on Wednesday. Join us if you like.

Until next time!

Paul

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Do We Actually Know What We Are Doing?

Posted on November 2, 2022 by Paul - Cawston Greenway

This time of year probably makes people think that we don’t. It’s all very much work in progress and does look very messy.

However, there is method in our madness.

The path becomes a quagmire where it’s in cutting over the winter, so we need to clear the raised ballast side-track so people don’t have to walk in the mud.

We also need to push back the bramble scrub so that we get a decent transition from path, to short grass, to longer grass and wildflowers, to scrub and woodland. This is ideal habitat for wildlife and makes it so much more interesting than a mono-green corridor.

Now, here is the second part of what we are doing in this area – The embankment on the south side of the Cawston Bridleway bridge gets a huge amount of direct sunlight, and is very sheltered.

What we want to do is clear off all the scrub, encourage a sheltered grassland habitat, cut back the low value trees and seed it with a wildflower called Kidney Vetch. This is the sole food plant of the endangered Small Blue butterfly larvae. We might be lucky and establish a colony. The nearest colony spotted is around the cement works, so not too far away.

If we don’t get Small Blue butterflies, it will still be hugely beneficial to a whole range of insects and birds.

As you can see, plenty of work to do!!

We can create a hedge at the top of the cutting to further protect from south-westerly winds and just add to the biodiversity here.

It’s all super exciting stuff and will look brilliant in the spring and summer of next year.

As always, come and help if you want to get involved, or pop along for a chat if you feel the need for a bit of human contact and conversation. This time of year can be a little depressing for people as it gets dark and cold, and Christmas looms. We are always here doing our thing with a laugh and a joke.

Until next week!

Paul

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