ABERLADY BAY LOCAL NATURE RESERVE Volunteer News 2012 Warden’s Note
Well, what another great year it’s been. You volunteers have, again, done so much on the nature reserve and I’d like to sincerely thank you for both the conservation work which has been achieved and the great fun I’ve had working with you all. One of the great charms of the site is its feeling of wilderness, of a land untouched by human hand. Paradoxically, it takes some effort (by human hand) to achieve this. Sea buckthorn is no longer spreading rampantly across the site, sheep are allowing a rich and diverse flora to establish and return to the site, we don’t have a forest of giant hogweed in the dunes, and the beach and saltmarsh have been cleaned of a veritable plethora of rubbish. It is no exaggeration to say that none of these projects would be possible to complete without your help. You have become an integral part of the workings of the reserve and one from which both wildlife and people greatly benefit. In short, ‘nice one’ and ‘cheers’! Below is a brief reminder of some of the things we got up to this year and I very much look forward to more work, fun and good banter in 2013! John Harrison 19 December 2012 th
A Year in the Life of a Volunteer Group
(2012 to be precise)
The year began, as it so often does, in January, when first up was some traditional Sea Buckthorn Bashing followed by a clean-up of the beach. Beach cleans are no light undertaking, as those who have taken part will know, lots of rubbish is heavy and it all needs to be carted by hand over the dunes to where it can get uplifted by a van. We have nicknamed the dune front on the main path ‘Wheelbarrow Brae’ for good reason! Into February and we completed the last major assault on the sea buckthorn for the season, burning up more of the large piles of brash around Gullane Point while digging out lots of the pernicious regrowth. Small sea buckthorn is hard work to clear (although wielding mattocks can be very therapeutic!) but a very important task as the ultimate success of keeping this plant in check here will depend upon whether we can stop it growing back again after we’ve hacked it down. A bonus group this month saw the construction of four magnificent mink rafts to track and catch mink which had been spotted on the site previously. While no subsequent evidence of mink have since been noted (which is actually great news!), the rafts have been
great in tracking otters on site, which seems to be a much more common feature than previously thought. March saw preparations for the nesting season for our wading birds. The saltmarsh was cleared of yet more rubbish, brought in by the tide, with our second group erecting electric fencing around the nesting area to try to exclude mammalian predators, which are likely to be impacting on the birds’ nesting success which has been decreasing significantly in recent years.
Please do not feed the Howard
April came and it was lovely and warm. Butterflies were on the wing and a handful of you stepped forward to take on the weekly monitoring of butterflies at the reserve. This monitoring tells us, in good detail, what is happening to our butterflies here and feeds into a national survey run by Butterfly Conservation. Visits were carried out until September. In summary, it was wet and the butterflies didn’t like it! We completed the electric fencing this month and bore mattocks against a bit more buckthorn (the nice little stuff). The group tasks in May took us back to the giant hogweed in the dunes and surveying for newts and moths. We removed the last of the old fencing along the main path to the beach in June which involved some strange fishing with wire which had been covered over by the sand, as had many of the posts, some of which are still buried deep into Wheelbarrow Brae. Shows what a mobile habitat a dune system is! It was holiday time at Treasure Island Beach in July as we joined Ranger Dave and the Yellowcraig volunteers again, taking out Pirripirri Bur. Boy am I glad we don’t have this at the Bay! Unfortunately, August wasn’t the warmest of months this year so not much removal of Reely good work Helen! reedmace was possible. However, we still got back over the areas we’d cleared in the past two years and cleared another, new area. Here’s hoping for more August sunshine next year! We spent September erecting the electric fence in preparation for the arrival of sheep. Over the past five years, we’ve got this operation down to a very fine art.
Now possible with a group to put the fence up in a day, it’s hard to believe it took over a week the first time! We get the bushes back from the nesting birds in October so we, once again, jumped gleefully into the world of buckthorn, bowsaws and burning. Back again up near Gullane Point, the young buckthorn in the soft sand of the old Sand Pit was a joy to pull out. No, The sheep are behind you Margaret! really, it was! The sheep th arrived back on 11 and a number of you stepped in to keep an eye on the woollies which were, disconcertingly, well behaved! There was more buckthorn bashing in November and also a beach clean. As a special treat for good behaviour, we had a nice walk out across the flats to see the midget submarines which are tethered out there. And so to the final month of the year, when December saw us on sea buckthorn duty again, but this time we had ourselves a cookout! Well we’ve got these whacking great fires, it seems rude not to make good use of Right, now what do we do with it?! the heat. On the menu were pork (cooked in a fire pit) and apple rolls, baked tatties, veggie parcels and backed apples. Yum! Oh, and the obligatory toasting of marshmallows of course. It wasn’t all eating though, we did actually dig out lots more buckthorn and raked up a grassland area of cut grass. And if all that wasn’t enough some of you were, at various times throughout the year, carrying out surveys of birds, moths and spiders.
The Website
Ah yes, the website! Well, it is currently working. And long may that continue. So, to look at photos of previous exploits, for a list of tasks for the year, or just to post rude comments about the Warden, then get yourself along to…
http://edubuzz.org/aberladybay/
Vol-Events in 2013 Day WED SUN WED SUN WED SUN WED SUN WED SAT WED SAT SUN THURS SUN WED SUN WED SUN WED SUN WED SUN WED SUN
Date 2nd Jan 20th Jan 6th Feb 17th Feb 6th Mar 17th Mar 3rd Apr 14th Apr 1st May 18th May 5th Jun 15th Jun 16th Jun 4th Jul 21st Jul 7th Aug 18th Aug 4th Sep 22nd Sep 2nd Oct 13th Oct 6th Nov 17th Nov 4th Dec 15th Dec
Task Sea Buckthorn Beach Clean Sea Buckthorn Sea Buckthorn Beach Clean Electric Fencing Electric Fencing Sea Buckthorn Giant Hogweed Survey of Wader Scrape Fencing & Plant Survey Moths & Bats Survey (8pm start) Moths & Wader Scrape Surveys (8am start) YELLOWCRAIG Pirri Removal Plant Survey Reedmace Removal Reedmace Removal Electric Fencing Electric Fencing Sea Buckthorn Sea Buckthorn Sea Buckthorn Beach Clean Sea Buckthorn Sea Buckthorn
We meet in the nature reserve car park at 9.30am and finish around 3pm (unless stated otherwise – for some survey events). There is a group on the 1st Wednesday of every month and on a further weekend date. Note that our July group will be on THURSDAY when we’ll be joining the boys and girls in the volunteer team at Yellowcraig. Details about each task will be emailed out to everyone a week or so before each event.