Cawston Greenway

We were back in our new old clearing this week. Or should that be old new clearing…?

Anyhow, here we are creating an area where people can stop, have a seat at our bench and just enjoy the wildflowers and the wildlife.

We are even allowed to imagine the double-tracked railway-line with up to twenty-two trains whooshing back and forth between Rugby and Leamington. A busy line, indeed.

As always, we pile up the cuttings to make habitat piles for all sorts of wildlife.

We are going to seed the area with a shade-loving wildflower mix in the spring. We are also going to replace the bat-boxes and work to get this bit as biodiverse as possible.

We put in a load of bluebell bulbs on the east side of the path a few years ago, so hopefully we will get a good showing in the spring.

Looking up and down the path.

And a festive cuppa and cookie…

Absolutely anyone is welcome to join us. Totally laid back and easy going. Lots of jobs I am holding off until I can get our Young Autistic Adults back. If you want to get involved, message me or just rock up with decent footwear and gloves.

Paul

A very mixed emotion post here.

We had bats roosting in the tunnel before someone set a fire and drove them out. We put up bat boxes but they don’t have the ladder bits so they are not used.

This was also our first proper clearing and slightly sad that we have let it rewild.

It reminds me of the people who have come and gone on our work parties. Some have gone because they have passed.

I kinda now just want to clear all the scrub out and get a load of wildflower seeds down. However, it is quite shady so we need to box clever.

Coffee, cookies and litter-picked the area. If you want to join us you have to bring cookies, or you are not allowed to join in <JOKE> all welcome!!

Paul

It is always terrific fun when we put up our den. A mixture of the hilarity of trying to put the thing up, and the schoolboy satisfaction that we have made a den in the woods and now have a camp.

I know, I know… Little things and all that, but it is good fun.

We created a new wildflower clearing opposite our newly secured bench. This is just about as south facing as we can get, so should do very well.

We can keep pushing this area out over the next few years and create a hub similar to the bird-feeder clearing.

It is all about controlling and managing the scrub so that we have as much biodiversity as possible, as well as a usable path and places for people to stop and rest.

We enjoyed coffee and cookies whilst sheltering in our camp. I think we only saw one other person during the whole morning.

A good, if a little wet, morning. Next week we are trying to add ladders to the bat-boxes so they start to get used. That will be interesting.

If anyone wants to join us you will be more than welcome. We are pretty laid-back and just kinda rub along.

Paul

So this week we decided that we would replant one of our benches. It became uprooted a while ago, but trying to put together a workday where we are able to socially distance, and be a bit sensible, proved a challenge.

It is one of the first benches where we were making the legs too short. We extended the legs so that we would get a lot more purchase from the new cement. Luckily the slope compensates for the short legs and it is quite a comfortable perch.

We are trying to have some sort of a bench every 500 metres or so, it just allows people to sit and enjoy the path and the wildlife.

That is really all we did and we just enjoyed a socially distanced coffee and cookie afterwards.

As always, the cups are put back in the bag after our coffee, and put in the dishwasher when I get home.

We have provisionally booked an Adventure Workshop for Young Autistic Adults for the 9th December. We will be replacing the missing bench in the Youth Quadrant and also the hide bench at the bird-feeder clearing. If lockdown continues we may have to push this date out a bit. I have one person keen to attend and could do with one more…

Here is a picture of the last of the berries on offer.

I can almost feel the long, cold winter approaching.

Paul

Phew!! Where to start…?

The greenway is totally litter-picked now.

We probably just need to keep on top of it now (how many times have I said that!!).

We put our Armistice Day rocks out and enjoyed seeing facebook posts as people found them and then hid them again.

You can find the facebook page at Maggy Anne Rocks and it is all about helping to give people a little lift if they are feeling a bit down.

The bird-feeders are full…

…and all is good along our little slice of paradise in a mad mad world!

We have a beast of some sort that is chewing the benches…! We wanted them to be rural looking and to fit in – but not quite this much…

We are not really that bothered, to be honest. If eventually they need replacing, we will just get our crack team of Young Autistic Adults on it and turn it into an Adventure Time Workshop.

Our usual coffee and cookie break was had. Nice to just chat, have a laugh, and enjoy the view.

Same time next week. Only six allowed and we are in the bit between Berrybanks and The Bear pub.

Paul

We managed to clear the overgrown bramble and other unwanted thuggish plants from our wildflower areas. We still need to rake off the birdfeeder clearing and last bench area, but it feels like we are making good progress.

This should have been done in September, but hey-ho. What we can decide in December is – do we want more wildflower cuttings along this bit? It has to be in areas where there are no overhanging trees and we have to have the manpower to be able to clear them out every year.

Previously we have gone to a lot of effort clearing huge areas of bramble and left it to see what might come up. Mostly this has been nettles, which is a bit discouraging, and then the brambles regrow.

If we decide that we want more wildflowers, to give us more biodiversity, we probably need bite-sized chunks that will take an hour to completely clear out and reseed. But we can stick that on the back-burner for now.

Nice coffee and macaroon break again, even if a bit of a working one. Good to have Cristina, Tim, Marcus, Paul and Mick (briefly) out today.

Next week we finish raking the wildflower areas and pull the bench back up the bank!!

Paul

At one point today it looked like we were running a Time Team episode with Tony Robinson. We literally had trenches everywhere.

We planted the bulbs in the trenches and then sieved the earth back using a griddle. This will hopefully give the bulbs the best chance to settle and grow. I have made a commitment to add 1,000 bulbs every year to this area, and also the existing bulbs should start to spread naturally.

What I am hoping over time is that it becomes a real “go to” when the whole area is covered in a white carpet of snowdrops. Imagine how uplifting that will be in the depths of winter, and then when the snowdrops have gone over, the same thing again with English bluebells.

Really good to set up our basecamp and shelter from the rain whilst enjoying a coffee and macaroon.

It’s all just a bit of fun, a great way to meet neighbours and have that warm fuzzy feeling that we are contributing to the local area.

Also, I have added all the access points to the map, if you click on the map tab above you will see the best places to get on and off. It is the purple markers with a walking person symbol. This should help with people planning walks. We are getting sign posts up at some point, but at the moment we need to catch up on all the lost time this year.

Well, that is it for this week. Anyone who wants to join in please do come along. You can get stuck in, or just do a little bit of a litter-pick and snipping back, if you want to sound us out and see if it’s for you.

Paul

Occasionally people query that we are ruining the wildlife habitat by clearing scrub and making a path. It always brings a wry smile to my face as I suggest that they look at the first few posts of this blog. But just in case, here is a little video called path v. wildlife habitat.

As you can see, I think the wildlife habitat is pretty safe, but just in case anyone is still worried, we do use Sustrans guide books to keep us on the straight and narrow.

We snipped back bramble runners from the Cawston Bridleway overbridge to the bird-feeder clearing.

We are slowly getting back into the routine of workdays. I will bring coffee and cookies next week. The really pressing things are getting bulbs in the ground and clearing out the wildflower areas.

I will list the workday schedule again later today. Loads of good stuff happening in the background that will amaze everyone!

Paul

Sustrans are now allowing workdays of up to six people. Good news.

This week we snipped back the area from the Rotherham Close entrance, to the Cawston Bridleway overbridge.

It’s all about keeping it nice and wide so that there is enough room for walkers and cyclists to pass unhindered, and lots of habitat for the wildlife on the edges.

Plenty to do in the next few weeks and months – replace the bench in the quadrant, reset the bench that has come loose at Berrybanks, mow and rake the wildflower areas (well overdue), give the Dunchurch Nature Trail a hard trim back, snip back the whole greenway, create new scallops in the bird-feeder area, plant a further 2,000 snowdrop bulbs to create our winter wonderland walk, plant 1,000 English bluebell bulbs to create our bluebell walk, manhandle the round bench up the bank, wood stain all the benches, and on and on…

Thankfully it is all good fun!

Paul