Cawston Greenway

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 37 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 86 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 30mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was April 25th with 63 views. The most popular post that day was The Litter Pick 25th April 2010.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were cawstongreenway.org, facebook.com, mail.live.com, obama-scandal-exposed.co.cc, and mail.yahoo.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for cawstongreenway.org, cawston greenway, rugby western relief road, offchurch greenway, and the stag at offchurch.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

The Litter Pick 25th April 2010 April 2010
4 comments

About April 2010

Where we are at… April 2010
1 comment

Meeting with Sustrans April 2010
2 comments

That was hard work!!!! September 2010
3 comments

Some say I have a brain the size of a walnut.

Others question if I was dropped on my head at birth.

And the rest just think I am plain mad!

Well that’s what Graham called me today because not only did I do a few hours on the WWT Ashlawn Cutting Local Nature Reserve, I then went and did it all again on Cawston Greenway. I ended the day looking like a vagabond who had been living rough for months on end. Rain, sleet and then snow, along with a bracing wind had to be endured throughout the day.

Looking north towards the bonfire, see the much flatter embankments and open feel.

It was a really good morning at Ashlawn with some new contacts made, and I was made to feel very welcome (thanks guys). We had a roaring bonfire and burnt off a whole load of brash.

Looking down the line.

We got the whole area cleared and tidy. Half way through the morning Rugby FM contacted me and interviewed me about progress on Cawston Greenway. Good to keep the momentum rolling and with this in mind, I can report that we are now the proud owners of our very own brush cutter. Hinckley and Rugby Building Society kindly gave us money to buy one and B&Q did a cracking deal, knocking 40% off one. This is going to make life so much easier. Hopefully we can get in The Rugby Observer with a story about the brush cutter, Hinckley and Rugby, and Cawston Greenway. All good news.

On Cawston Greenway we made a new glade, quite a small one with a specimen tree or two within the clearing.

A new glade is made.

The new glade is on a bit of the greenway where the cutting is turning into embankment, and the views to the west are pretty good. There was a natural break in the trees and I tried to make a feature of this window across open countryside. I also stumbled upon a natural log pile that was pretty rotted down and covered in moss. Still work to do, but yet another glade that is different from the others and will create a superb micro-habitat for a whole host of insects, spiders, wild birds and other wildlife.

The views across open countryside from the new glade. Making the most of a natural break in the trees.

Well that’s about it for now. Next workday will be after Christmas and I think we need to think about putting up the many bird nesting-boxes, bat boxes and insect houses that are cluttering up my garage. We also need to try and get as much of the path cut back between the glades as possible, so that we don’t have the thorny problem of brambles snagging the legs of walkers and cyclists. We have until March and then we are back into the bird-nesting season. It’s going to be fantastic to see what grows in the glades next year, and how the whole shape of the greenway changes.

Happy Christmas everyone, I hope you all have a great celebration and I look forward to cracking on next year!

Paul

Superb workday today. Six or so of us turned out and got the fire roaring almost straight away. We cleared all the piles of brash that were piled up on the banks of the main picnic area. Ed cut down a lot of the stumps from felled trees and we raked some of the fallen leaves into piles. This will create a good habitat for whatever insects rely on the leaf litter to survive over winter, and also encourage wild flowers to grow in the uncovered earth.

Next workday on this Thurday, and this is the last one before Christmas. I am joining the Ashlawn work party at 10am and starting the greenway work party at 12:30pm.

Hope to see you there, but if not thank-you for all your hard work this year. We have made a massive difference.

Have a great Christmas!

Paul

Did a bit this morning, tried to get the bonfire going but after a lot of smoke and a few feeble flames it finally died on me, but moved a lot of the brash onto it so it is ready to go next time.

The greenway was a whiteway today with all the frost on the trees. Quite a magical feel but also a little eerie..

I did a lot of work on the next clearing, which is under a large oak tree. I untangled a load of hawthorn and blackthorn trees from the oak’s lower branches and tried to cut a window in the neighbouring trees, to create a shaft of sunlight that will hopefully fall onto the ground under the oak. It will be interesting to see what grows in this corridor of light next year.

Also tried my hand at dead-hedging. It was not a pretty sight. Way too little patience for this sort of activity!

Not much else to report, kept busy and never felt the cold until I walked home. A productive morning.

Until next time!

Paul

About ten of us turned out and got on with the path widening. A really good stretch done and it made a huge difference. This will pay dividends in the summer when the uncut side starts to push in on the existing path, forcing people to walk on the newly cut bit and this will keep growth trodden down.

This is the old path that we are cutting wider so walkers and cyclists can have a clear passage in summer.

Mike’s words of wisdom came back to haunt us today. Remember that sage advice, “stack the brash right away from the path..” Well today we started to untangle a big pile of it and burn it. It really is a horrible job and if we had stacked it much further away from the path, they we could have just left it. All part of the learning curve that we are on!

A couple of other learning bits today. Keep the newly cut brash in managable piles so that it makes it easy to pick them up and carry them to the bonfire. Stack the logs on the bonfire all the same way. This makes the wood dry out quicker and gets the fire burning really quickly.

Great effort today so thanks to all. Got some news regarding a couple of picnic benches in the pipe-line. Watch this space!

On our last workday before Christmas (Thursday 16th December) Warwickshire Wildlife Trust are having a workday on Ashlawn Cutting, with another one on Sunday 19th too. I would like to push our workday start time back a bit (12:30) and spend a couple of hours at Ashlawn with the Trust so I can learn some things that we can use on Cawston Greenway. Meet at 10am at the Ashlawn Road carpark in front of the football club.

I am going down to the greenway for an hour or so to burn off a bit more of the brash tomorrow. Look forward to seeing anyone else who fancies it.

Paul

…or was it just a mad eight of us who turned out today in such freezing conditions that even the bonfire took almost two hours to be coaxed into life.

However, what superb progress we made. The whole south side of the bridge is now clear and the beautiful oak tree is free from any hawthorn that was badly tangled around its lower branches.

The superb oak tree that overlooks the central picnic clearing

We made two more log-piles and these are going to be fantastic habitat for insects such as beetles, woodlice, spiders and such like, as well as lichens, fungi and mosses. We also made another “bench” or resting place out of a large log. 

Just seven or so more trees to come out on the north side of the bridge and we are finished. I have already started work on the next clearing which is down the line and under another large oak tree. I reckon the clearing should be the same size as the reach of the oak, so we get a different habitat to the open glades that we have been creating.

Well done to all who made it today. They say that you get warm twice from wood. Firstly when you cut it down and secondly when you put it on the fire. Never a truer statement made!!

Next workdays:

Mike Slater from Butterfly Conservation is meeting me at 10am tomorrow (Monday 29th) to look at what we need to do to attract endangered butterflies to the greenway. Feel free to join us and share in Mike’s expertise. We can do a bit of work whilst we are there. One thing that we need to address is stumps – I know it’s a pain but we need to be cutting the stumps as close to the ground as possible. Far too many are left too high and it looks odd at the best of times, plus it becomes a trip hazard. Also cutting branches need to be right up to the trunk or we will get a mass of shoots off the cut end that will look untidy and weigh the branch down.

Tuesday 30th November – 2pm to 3.30pm – dead-hedge around the top of the next clearing.

Sunday 5th December – 11am to 1:30pm – meet at the original meeting point and work towards the new underpass making clearings and clearing scrub.

Monday 6th December – 10am to 12:30pm – dead-hedge any brash from the Sunday workday.

Sunday 12th December – 11am to 2pm – start to cut back the outside curves of the paths between the glades. Remember we are looking to get the path as wriggly as we can to stop a wind-tunnel effect being created that will discourage butterflies. If we keep doing this and leave the inside of the curve to encroach onto the existing path, then eventually it will be really curvy and the puddles will be well away from the new path. We need the path to be about one metre wide.

Thursday 16th December – 11am to 2pm – continue with cutting back of the outside curves of the path.

I think that’s about it until after Christmas. Great work today, plenty to do, plenty done this year so far. If you haven’t been down for a while please come along. It really is looking good. If anyone knows where we can get a pub-style picnic bench from (for free) please shout out (no jokes about robbing one out of The Bear’s beer-garden!!!), or can we make one from all the wood that we are chopping down??

Paul

…it really was. We had great weather, a roaring bonfire and just about finished the main clearing. We cleared so much scrub and it really was noticeable. The only thing missing was some jacket potatoes and sausages on that bonfire!!

Eight or so of us turned out and cracked on with things. Good to see two new faces and it’s nice that a few people who were dog-walking on the greenway knew about our group and were very complimentary about what we were doing and how it was looking. It’s also good to see that our week-day workdays are proving to be really successful.

There are just a few trees left to take down on the north side of the bridge and a small amount of stump removal, and we formulated a plan for the south side.

It’s hard to imagine that this area was dense canopy a few weeks ago.

This is the view on the south side looking north. We are going to clear the area on the south side for about fifteen feet and there is a superb oak tree that we can keep. After this is gets quite dense with trees and scrub. We can widen the path and create a few more clearings down to Potford’s Dam. There are some lovely specimen trees and shrubs that we can cut around. With regards to a bench, I am still trying to get one but it does pose the risk of it being stolen or burned. I am wondering if somehow we could make a bench out of some of the wood that we cut down? The big logs that I moved make a decent seat!

Great meeting with the Youth Offending team this afternoon. My car is full of bird boxes, bat boxes and insect houses. I am setting up a partnership with them where youths who are ordered to do Community Service can do scrub clearance on the greenway. This will be a great help and hopefully get us some publicity too.

That’s it for now. Next workday is this Sunday. Come along for a bit, or all (I know that everybody is starting to get busy with Christmas). Mainly working on that south side and maybe put up a few nesting-boxes. Warwickshire Wildlife Trust are coming along to help and give us a bit of welcomed guidance.

See you on Sunday!

Wednesday 24th November 11am to 1pm

I want this to be a sort of mini-workday, just a bit of tidying and burning off the rest of the brash that was left ftom the last workday on Monday. Maybe take a few more trees down but nothing too heavy. Meet at the Victorian bridge picnic clearing. Also look at what needs to be done on the other side of the bridge and start to put a plan together.

Remember to bring something to eat and drink. A packed lunch would be good.

Sunday 28th November 10:30am to 1:30pm

Meet at the picnic clearing again. Come along for the full shift, or just part of the shift if you have other things to do.

We have aquired a litter-picker from the litter-pick in Cawston Wood (www.cawstonwood.wordpress.com) a few weeks ago so one of us can clear the bit of litter that has appeared. We also have two bird nesting boxes and a bat box very kindly donated by C J Wildlife Ltd that we can put up. I am also getting some bird nesting boxes from the Youth Offending Service so we need to think about where we put them, bearing in mind they need to be cleaned out once a year.

Other work that can be done: start to clear the area on the south side of the bridge, rake up all the bits on the ground, burn off any brash that we take out, finish the steps that lead up to Cawston Bridleway and, make another log pile.

Christmas will be on us soon and I am very aware that everyone will have a lot to do in December. I will do my best to keep the momentum going but understand that we all have a limited amount of time to give.   

Fantastic progress made this year so far, loads learnt and loads more to learn, plenty going on with the link into Cawston Wood, Sustrans connecting the greenway with Route 41 at Potford’s Dam, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and Warwickshire Butterfly Conservation taking a keen interest in what we are doing. It’s all good!

This was our first workday held on a week day and everything was perfect. We had fabulous weather, two roaring bonfires, six or so volunteers and boy did we clear a whole load of trees in the picnic clearing.

Standing under the Victorian footbridge looking northwards

I am working on the Sunday so Monday makes an interesting change. 11am start at the picnic clearing by the Victorian bridge, where we have been working on the last few workdays.

I felled a few more trees on Monday and pulled them under the bridge to dry them out. I would like to burn off the brash, and the pile of brash left from last Sunday (I burned a bit of it off on Monday but the rain finally put my small bonfire out).

A very wet and cold picture of the picnic clearing!

I would also like to build a log pile with the tree trunks. This needs to be in dappled shade to maintain humidity so it becomes a valuable source of habitat for mosses, lichens and fungi, but not too cold for the many insects that it will also attract.

I walked along a lot of the path yesterday and it really is a quagmire in places with my feet sinking ankle-deep into the mud. This led me to think about the way that we widen it, and the curving path dilemma. I wonder if we should cut a new path on the slightly higher ground that is next to the existing narrow path and use the existing path as a sort of drainage ditch. We can follow the natural curves of the existing path and switch from side to side as these natural curves also switch. There are plenty of dry patches to facilitate the cross-over points. If anybody has a better idea, or can expand on this idea, please share it!!

The curved nature of the path that we need to try and keep

Other news:

I am trying to get some bird nesting-boxes for the picnic clearing. Hopefully have some news soon. 

The work that we did in Cawston Wood will be in The Observer this week. Remember that I am trying to get the unofficial footpath that runs off the greenway and into the woods made into a proper Right of Way. If this happens we can make a ramp to get down the embankment. You can find the blog at www.cawstonwood.wordpress.com. It will be a lovely circular walk in the summer.

I have the Licence Agreement from Railway Paths Ltd (Sustrans) and the agreement will be officially set up within the next couple of weeks. This will then allow us to apply for funding from charity groups who support the sort of project that we are working on. The really big one is getting the path made proper with a loose gravel type of surface. This opens up the greenway to people who maybe are not quite as agile as they would like to be, so a very welcomed step forwards. It would also be good to get some benches similar to the ones on the footpath that runs around Cawston, put into some of the clearings. It would be great if the greenway becomes a place for people to visit and enjoy, rather that somewhere that they just walk or cycle through.

That’s it for now. Bit of a ramble but hey-ho. Look forward to seeing who can make it on the Monday.

Paul