Dr Judy Webb puts in a tremendous amount of voluntary work in the Milham Ford Nature Park, either on her own or with volunteers from the New Marston Wildlife Group, as well as on other local sites that are important for wildlife.   She mentions some of this work in e-mails sent to the volunteers.  I thought it would be a good idea to make the information sent out to volunteers more widely available - hence this page (with Judy's agreement).

Marilyn

 

JUDY'S JOTTINGS

 

 

11 December 2011

(No rain, despite the weather forecast.)  Thought it would be only me at Milham then Curt and Sue arrived!  Thus we got lots done.  Stakes in to protect either end of the new ‘hedge’ from the mowers, young blackthorns moved to the 'hedge' for brown hairstreaks.  No less than 3 dumping/planting sites of garden plants removed (why do people do this?), plus Curt ring- barked the two Ash trees I don’t want kept.  Sue and I removed one of the young oaks that had had its bark severely damaged by a mower.  Bill Parry emailed this morning to say he had tidied up all the branches cut off the large Willow near the old pond at the previous session - it looked much better.

 

We litter-picked quite a bit as well.  I made a collection of hedgerow species berries, as I’m running a hedgerow workshop at a conference in Oxford next spring.  There are quite  a few fungi still up but no time to survey.  A whole new ring of Field Blewits visible.

 

29 October - 20 November 2011
Judy's explanation of the work needing to be done in the Park at this time of year can be found in Volunteering at Milham Ford Nature Park - Autumn 2011

 

11 October 2011
Judy was one of the contributors to a Radio 4 programme 'The Flies Workshop', the second in a series called 'Bitten by the Bug'.   Coincidentally, an example of the Artist's fungus (Ganoderma species) she referred to during the programme (which had been recorded in March) had been found by her during the NMWG walk in Marston Meadows on 9 October.
You can hear the programme via the BBC iPlayer.  

 

9 October 2011
Data gathered by the New Marston Wildlife Group on two of the hedgerows adjacent to the Wolfson Nature Reserve floodplain meadows has been sent to Michael Pearson of Wolfson College.  (Data for one of the hedges was collected in a personal survey earlier in the year.) We are grateful to the College for allowing the group access to these meadows.  I was particularly pleased to see Purging Buckthorn and 3 bushes of the uncommon Midland Hawthorn in the laid hedge netween North and South Mead.  [Photos of these species are included in the slideshow of this survey.]  Possibly the group will be able to survey the remaining 2 hedges in the Spring of 2012 to complete the data set.

 

25 September 2011
The oak lower down on the Harberton Mead side has good growths of the very large honey brown, contorted, milk cap Lactarius acerrimus on the upslope side of it, where the grass is not trampled.  They really are big caps and the best growth of it I have seen for 10 years.

 

August 2011
Have scattered seed of Quaking Grass, Briza media, on bare areas at Milham Ford.  The seed of this germinates in the autumn, so has to be sown now.

 

11 August 2011

Earlier in the year Judy attended a workshop on the management of Floodplain Meadows, organised by The Floodplain Meadows Partnership.  The 'Urban Meadows' section of the Partnership's Summer 2011 newsletter includes her comments regarding the management of Marston Meadows - this section starts at the bottom of the 5th page.

 

11 July 2011
Seed collecting went well yesterday – got lots of cowslip, yellow rattle, knapweed, ox-eye daisy, red clover (5 volunteers plus me).  Still have a few species to target so will be popping over in evenings this week if weather good.  

Encouraged to see plentiful cowslip seedlings coming up in established cowslip areas so not all lost in the recent hot dry spring.  Some ox-eye daisies sown only last autumn not only survived the dry spring but are already in flower – very encouraging.

Around the ponds, numerous honey bees and bumble bees on the Purple Loosestrife which is looking fantastic. Peter Somogyi was removing invasive clump of sweet grass on the pond edge but had to retreat as disturbed a bumble bee nest and was getting stung! (black-bodied, red tails, Bombus lapidarius, I think).  Lots of honey bees and bumbles on the lime flowers as well – got some photos at last. Wonder where the honey bee hive locally is?  

Saw large green and blue Emperor dragonflies hawking and fighting over the ponds – 4 in view at once – people visiting just stand and watch them.  

Met yet another mother with 4 young children who chatted and said how much the children absolutely loved coming here (they used to rent a house in Harberton Heights but have now moved to Headington, but came back specially because they like it so much).  

As Milham has abundant seed this year, I’m collecting a bit more than we need for our own re-sowing this autumn.  I can use it all but would like to make some surplus available to any other ‘Friends of Parks’ groups who might need local seed for enhancing meadow [Judy has asked for the opinion of other members of the group on this.]

6 July 2011
I'm researching the value of Lime trees generally and their value to insects in particular.  The Lime trees at the Jack Straw's Lane edge of the park are mostly Caucasian Limes (Tilia euchlora) but to the left of the JSL entrance there is one example of the Silver Lime (Tilia tomentosa), which is reported to have a narcotic effect on bees.  Look out for drunken/sleepy bees lying around the place!

16 June 2011

 Gave a guided tour of Milham Ford Nature Park to a small group of old Milham Ford School teacher friends, who meet up for lunch occasionally.  They were very impressed and two of them very kindly made a donation to the NMWG towards the cost of a proper board for displaying notices at the entrance - a total of £110 (including one donation of £100!).

 

23 May 2011  Transect survey in Marston Meadows
The purpose of this survey was to detect any changes in vegetation that are happening as a result of cleaning out the nearby ditch in 2009.  The findings may be important for future management to maintain the health of the meadow flora.  Representatives of Friends of Aston’s Eyot and the Tameside River Conservation Project joined in to learn meadow species identification and how they can monitor/manage floodplain meadows sites.  We spent an hour familiarising them with the species and discussing the history of the site and why we were doing the monitoring.  Also met Mr Blackburn [who farms the land] and we all had a good chat with him, which was useful.

Then we managed the transect in 50B but did not have time to do the other, control meadow, 51.  [Curt and Judy finished meadow 51 on 3 June].  Results from 50B very interesting, but as last year, changes may be a reflection of a combination of the ditch work AND the extremely dry spring!

 

11 May 2011

The scent of the Ragged Robins in Marston Meadows hit me before I even saw them.   Two years ago this area was all Meadowsweet and Sedge with no Ragged Robin.  Then the ditch was cleaned out, the soil was heavily disturbed and the ditch mud was spread on the field.  Ragged Robin seed that had been asleep in the mud for goodness knows how many years all germinated last year because it was exposed to the light.  Then there was an early hay cut, which knocked back the Meadowsweet and so this year the Ragged Robins got off to an early start and are all in flower! 

Lots of only-white Comfrey as well.  Considering that this meadow looked as though a bomb had hit it just after all the ditch work, this is a wonderful testament to ‘disturb and leave’ to get interesting and spectacular flowers back from the seed bank.

 

15 April 2011
Spent time at Milham last Sunday putting back canes and string that had been pulled up.  Otherwise people trample straight through the cowslips. Bluebells were just starting, so may well be going strong by now - well, as strong as can be expected with the terribly dry conditions that they don't like!  We should have a lot more bluebells in flower by now but the pat two dry Springs have reduced the numbers.
[Saturday, 16 April: unfortunately Judy's good work was undone again - sticks had been pulled up and removed or broken in two but string had been left on ground in a line, so that, at least marked the edge of the cowslip area.]

 

 

20 March 2011

The Milham Ford Park ponds are getting a lot of attention from children although no frogs or newts are yet visible breeding.  As they are large ponds, I expect the water will be a bit colder than in a garden pond and thus things will happen later. 

 

[27 March 2011: frog spawn, however, had hatched - empty 'cases' shown on left.  18 June 2011: plenty of young frogs hopping around]

 

Primroses and Cowslips are just coming into flower around the site margins. 

 

Currently the Phoenix area (bottom right of plan) is ablaze with yellow Coltsfoot flowers and the maroon Fritillary flowers are just about to open not far from the children’s play structures.  A beautiful almond scent assailed my nostrils from the cherry plum bushes in full flower on the Harberton Mead side.

 

Hope to get some canes and string up soon to protect the meadow areas from trampling whilst the flowers grow.  [28 March - done]  One Bee Orchid leaf rosette seen, hope there will be more later! 

 

The meadow flower seeds we sowed last autumn in weed-killed patches are all coming up like mustard and cress, but won’t stand a lot of trampling and another dry spring. Here’s hoping for a gently rainy April, to let the seedlings get away. 

 

Was very surprised and pleased to see the special shiny black Jet ants that lived in one of the decaying Poplar tree stumps have survived – a few crawling over the stumps and logs.  When their home tree was pushed over and the nest burnt last year, I thought they had gone for good, but now hope they have found a new home in a nearby old Poplar tree. 

 

Unfortunately I found that two of the young Oak trees have died.  (Scroll down page that opens to see Oak trees.) These were moved when the entrance to the park on Marston Road was made.  They were rather large and no doubt suffered too much root damage to recover.  That’s why I have put tree checking in my list of jobs below. 

 

Work on site has had a huge boost from a visit from volunteers from Taylor and Francis, Abingdon, organised by Nina Sperinck of the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) on 15th March.  They concentrated their efforts in the North West corner by Jack Straw’s Lane (see plan), clearing alien Himalayan Giant bramble to let more light into the blackthorn to encourage brown hairstreak butterflies to lay eggs there this summer.  This also freed the two remaining valuable Wild Service Trees, Sorbus torminalis,  which were being overwhelmed by the bramble. An old, collapsed, chestnut paling fencing was removed.  This opening up of the area may stop it being used as a den, as activities are now more visible.

Thanks to Marilyn for taking the photos and getting them up so quickly.

14 January 2011  
I have lots of native seeds sown that will be good for all sorts of bees for planting out this next autumn, so we can replace the nectar and pollen source gradually.  The Betony will be excellent for bees.

1 November 2010    See Wild Flower Management

 

 

20 October 2010

If weather remains good, I will bring the weedkiller to kill sward patches in advance of some seed sowing of ‘Milham meadow mix’ in a couple of weeks' time.  My plan this year is not to kill a block of the plain grass, but to do circular or irregular patches of a couple of metres in areas that have hay meadow management but currently lack diversity.  Then I can get the volunteer crew raking off the dead grass and seed sowing in November*.  Mary Jo [Drew] has done a fantastic job collecting seed and I have it all in a mix of damp coir fibre and sand, sitting outside, chilling down nicely. 

*This work was done on 21 11 2010

 

17 October 2010

After my fungi foray on Boars Hill, I visited Milham and found that a large amount  of the alien Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) had been dropped into the water at the margins of the ponds.   This plant is among the world’s most noxious invasive weeds.   It's the one that's

taking over Lake Victoria in Africa!  

Fortunately, being tropical/sub-tropical it would be killed off at Milham by the first hard frost, so any bits missed will not survive.  (The plants must have come from water that never got very cold - from a pond in somebody's conservatory?)  However, I am concerned that some other unwelcome plant might have been introduced into the ponds with it.  The plants removed were weighed - about 3 kg/7 lb.

 

 

There is a slide show of photos, mostly taken by Judy (as indicated), of the fungi she lists below (and of others she found during her forays in Milham Ford Nature Park in late September/early October 2010): click here.]

 

6 October - More fungi found:

*Blackening Waxcap (Hygrocybe conica)

*Common Earthball (Scleroderma verrucosum) - grows in the vicinity of lime and hawthorn trees

*Bearded Milkcap (Lactarius pubescens_ - grows near oak trees

 

4 October 2010

Visited Milham in the rain yesterday and had a good tour of the site following my willow-chopping and seed-spreading in the rain.

 

Lots more fungi have come up:

*Ivory Funnel (Clitocybe dealbata) Photo is of an Ivory Funnel found in the Park in 2009

*A pink-gill species (Entoloma sericeum)

Mycena olivaceomarginata

Mycena aetites

*Yellow Wax Caps (Hygrocybe cf quieta) in grass in meander area near stream

 

Under the two Harberton Mead edge oaks:

White saddle, Helvella crispa

*Entoloma sericeum

 

An impressive Amanita (being photographed and dried at the moment).  Most unusual - looks more like A. eliae, which is listed as 'rare'.  Will have to go off to the experts in due course.  Never seen it before in 10 years of intensive recording of the site.  That's fungi for you!  Just think of the Giant Puff Balls coming up in the ex-alien-blackberry area.  They were last seen coming up there in 1993 - 17 years ago!

 

Saw a fellow picking a lot of something and taking them away in a bag - hope it was only Fairy Ring Champignon or field mushroom, or he will be in trouble!

 

23 September 2010
Have to spend Sunday (morning at least) over in North Hinksey, overseeing the Oxford Conservation Volunteers working in the Copse and Fen area of Louie Memorial Fields, where both both Curt and I have recently been employed.  Will be donating some purple loosestrife from the over-abundance in the Milham ponds to the newly excavated pond at N Hinksey, so might have to be at Milham at the crack of dawn with a spade!

 

8 August 2010

Conducted an informal tour around Milham Ford Nature Park for a group of people interested in botanical identification.  The group was formed as a result of the Ashmolean Natural History Society’s Botanical Identification Workshops and its members are looking for sites they can visit together to practise the skills they have learnt.

 

 

12 July 2010 
Just been to Milham to put up posters for my wildflower walk this next Sat and collect seeds with Mary-Jo. 

Two helpful boys gave us rubbish they had removed from the ponds, including a biggish square radio battery - wonder how poisonous that would have been if it disintegrated. 

Still 7 ducklings, remarkably; the fox must be well fed elsewhere.

The ponds are going down a lot.  Hop sedge (Carex pseudocyperus) is marooned and dry.  Still, it has formed a great many seeds, so next year we might have too many hop-sedgelings.

 

24 June 2010 
Judy, and Curt Lamberth, Chairman of the NMWG, are both currently busy with survey work and habitat remediation in a small fen on Cumnor Hill at the Louie Memorial Fields. 

 

 

19 June 2010

Struggling to identify a worrying pond plant at Milham, which I've been watching grow for a while - fairly sure it is the invasive alien Nuttall's Waterweed, Elodea nutallii.  This could become a problem, as it could exclude other native pond waterweeds.

 [A subsequent pond-clearing event in September removed a large proportion of the weed.]

 

9 June 2010
Shaun Gibson, Arboricultural Officer, Oxford City Council, has visited Milham Ford Park to look at the Poplars and reported that, although some were of poor quality, certainly not all of them were in that category and reduction to 1 m seemed to him to be a 'somewhat excessive reaction'.   He is planning to re-pollard these trees this Autumn/Winter.  If excessive decay is discovered in the stems, the height of the pollard point will be decreased 'to reduce the risk of consequential damage from failure'.

6 June 2010
After counting the few bee orchids we have at Milham this year, I shall be doing some planting of silverweed round the new ponds.  Latin name is Potentilla* anserina; 'anser' is the Latin for 'goose' - where geese graze, this plant grows.   It looks good, likes full sun and heavy clay soil, doesn't need cutting, stands water-logging,  trampling  and drying out in summer.  It spreads by runners, like strawberries, and also grows from tiny cuttings.  It's possibly the ideal thing for the margin of the shallow pond, which is getting a lot of trampling by children and dogs.

[*The Wikipedia link refers to a change in the Latin name to 'Argentina anserina', but Judy says this change is not mentioned in the most recent edition of Clive Stace's 'New Flora of the British Isles' - the botanist's 'bible'.]

17 May 2010
Sunday's pond edge activities went well despite the rain but it was a bit of a mud bath.  Peter Somogyi came with a sharp spade and removed lots of sweet grass.
 

The Marston Meadows transect survey took place on 15 May.  The purpose of this is to estimate the percentage cover of five indicator species.   The data must now be studied with Curt [Dr Curt Lamberth] before deductions can be made.

13 May 2010
I'll be at Milham this Sunday afternoon, if any of you would like to help with attacking the margins of the ponds, digging out sweet grass and planting more attractive flowers like Flag Iris and Brooklime, Creeping Jenny and Lesser Spearwort.  This will be the last session for a while, as I need to be out surveying for flowers and insects on other sites besides Milham in May and June - the key times for identifying all sorts of species.

The water plants are looking particularly good at the moment.  You might see the small white flowers of the water crowfoot with its finely divided hair, like frilly green leaves.  There is also a good patch of the curly pondweed; this has maroon linear leaves with wavy edges that look as if they have been crimped with hair crimpers.  Not too many bulrushes left to tackle - will get them all out this summer. 

The sheets of scummy green alga will soon be dying down and sinking to the bottom of the pond to make a nice mud layer and then we will be able to see the animal life more clearly.  A newt was spotted in the last few weeks and there seem to be loads of water boatmen.  A pair of mallard ducks* seems to have adopted the ponds.  I'm trying to gently dissuade them as I don't want people to start bringing food for them and turning the wildlife ponds into duck ponds.  The nutrient enrichment that would result would be disastrous for the other wildlife.  They also eat tadpoles and other pond invertebrates.  [*Seven ducklings were hatched, one survived the fox's hunting and eventually left the pond.  The mother and a new male were seen in September but they had left by the beginning of October 2010 in search of better foraging by the river.]

Today I photographed my first damselfly - a brilliant red and green female Large Red Damselfly.  I'm keen to see if there are any of these to be found out round the Milham ponds.

On the dry land flower side, the first stunning blue flower of the cornflower has appeared in the phoenix area. 

29 April 2010
I need a break from the scrub warfare, so I'll be focusing on pond margin planting.  I have a donation of attractive nature pond plants - yellow flag iris, fragrant water mint and yellow creeping jenny to find homes for around the new ponds.  This will require removal of some mats of the thuggy, fast-spreading, sweet grass (Glyceria fluitans) to make room for them.  We could also divide up some of the brooklime and water cress and plant in new positions round the ponds and up and down the stream.

27 April 2010
Floodplain Meadows Conference in Milton Keynes

22 April 2010
The cowslips are looking really lovely at the moment and this is just the time to check near them for the emerging leaves of the rare Adder's Tongue Fern in the meadow area.   Lots of cutting things back to do and tidying up already-cut brushwood, if volunteers would like join me at 2 pm this Sunday.  I’ll also be having a go at digging out the rampaging sweet grass from part of the pond edges (putting something prettier there) and moving watercress up and down the stream bed as well.

15 April 2010
I note there have been more than 120 fritillary flowers out not far from the play structures this year – delighted they seem to be increasing remarkably and it was a wonderful show that attracted a lot of interest from some parents of children playing. 

13 April 2010
If you look at the most recent images of Milham Ford Park on Google Earth, you can see what what appear to be relics of ridge and furrow markings on the bank just below the Milham building.  These markings may have been eliminated from the main playing field area during the building of the school by earth movements to provide level pitches for sport.  Ring patterns visible on the main field are probably fungal in origin.  Need to check the field soon for St George’s Mushroom, which makes rings and comes up near St George’s day.  Were the rings there before the field was levelled? or have the fungi colonised since levelling?

Similar ridges and furrows can be seen on the playing field of St Michael’s School, on the back field at about the same height as the Milham bank, but the St Michael’s ones have been mostly levelled for their football pitch.  

This is interesting because it shows Milham was ploughed at some time in the past (I had thought the heavy clay soil would have precluded this).  Therefore all the fungi on that bank (and there are rare species here) have colonised post arable management.  This is causing me to re-think a lot!

30 March 2010
I’m very pleased with the cutting back of the lime tree basal sprouts and ivy on the Jack Straw's Lane side that has been achieved so far.  This will let more light in for the primroses and bluebells.  It will enable the mowers to get in closer to the hedge and keep the suffocating ivy (creeping out from the hedge line) in check. 

Lorraine Irwing ’s recent amazing discovery of 6 Brown Hairstreak eggs on the Prunus shrub in her garden just across the Marston Road has convinced me that we could do with removing shrubby and unwanted young tree growth around the blackthorn patch in the Milham corner at the junction of Jack Straw’s lane with Marston Road .  This will allow the sun to get to the young blackthorn this butterfly likes for egg laying.  Then maybe we will persuade a female BH to dally in that warm corner this next July and lay some eggs. 

Removing some blackberry growth here will also benefit the young Wild Service trees.  These are at risk of being engulfed when the blackberries get going again this year.  These blackberries here are not the small, well behaved wild brambles, they are the aggressive garden escape (alien) ‘Himalayan Giant’ variety, which sends out huge prickly 3m long branches each year and is thus a real menace.  Ideally, eventually, I would like this totally removed.  We will be keeping all the smaller, wild, native brambles as nectar and berry sources.

28 March 2010
Today Lorraine and Bridget planted the orchids, John, Elizabeth and I continued cutting the Lime basal sprouts and also blackthorn along the Jack Straw's Lane hedge line.  All the cuttings were stuffed into holes in the hedge opposite the church to deter entry through the hedge.

Good news is the Fritillaries are starting to flower, bad news is that all three of the 50+ Club apple trees have been snapped off - two of them very comprehensively.  [Curt subsequently dug up and potted these vandalised trees and has been nurturing them in his garden.  They have sprouted new growth.]

16 March 2010

I attended the county Local Wildlife Site (LWS)/Sites of Local Importance for Nature Conservation (SLINC) discussion and designation meeting at BBOWT (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust) yesterday.  Basically all the City SLINCs are up for review and re-assessment.  I think the whole of the Milham field site has made the transition from the old SLINC to the new LWS designation (SLINC was a purely City Council designation, LWS is a county one – some city SLINCs do not come up to the more stringent requirements of the county designation of LWS).

This is good news because previously only a thin strip of the marginal areas at Milham had SLINC designation, now a much larger (maybe the whole) of the site will be an LWS.  The new stream and ponds contributed greatly to this more powerful designation of LWS, which means the site is now of County importance.  The committee would like to see more records of species from the new ponds to prove their importance, so get dragonfly watching this year folks!

The other news of relevance to the NMWG is that four of the Marston Meadows adjacent to Park Farm that were SLINC did not make it through to being LWS because they are currently overgrazed.  Thus they have been de-designated.  I expected this and I think it is fair.  They remain as ‘corridor/green belt’ and ‘green infrastructure’ however.

15 March 2010
Meeting of selection panel for Sites of Local Interest for Nature Conservation (SLINCs) at Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust headquarters.  I explained the reasons for extending the boundaries at Milham Ford Nature Park and why it should be retained as a LWS.

4 March 2010
The marginal areas at Milham have SLINC designation (not the centre of the field or children's play area).  All SLINCs are up for review this March, and the name will probably change to be in line with the county wildlife sites i.e. become 'Local Wildlife Site' or LWS.  Those that do not come up to scratch (i.e. satisfy the criteria) will be denotified and lose designation.

Therefore I have had a meeting with the LWS officer at the Thames Valley Environmental Record Centre, Julie Kerans, and given her an updated list of the species of conservation importance at Milham (notables and Red Data listeds as well as uncommon things and orchids).  We have discussed re-drawing the SLINC boundaries at Milham to include the new pond and stream complex and the Phoenix area.  She will come up with a new proposal for the boundaries.

I'll then be attending (by invitation) the decision meeting on the City SLINCS on 15 March at BBOWT (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust) HQ in Littlemore.  My task there is to to explain the reasons for extending the boundaries at Milham and why it should be retained as an LWS.

31 January 2010
Pollarding of the Milham Ford willows now complete.  The reasons for doing this were to prevent too much shading of the marsh area and the pond and to reduce the seed output of the trees; thousands of baby willows would take over the new ponds.  The pollarded trees (female) will eventually be replaced by male grey willows, which produce catkins and pollen (a very valuable protein source for spring bees provisioning nest cells for larvae) but no seeds.  

I'm then (by invitation) attending the decision meeting on the City SLINCs (Sites of Local Importance for Nature Conservation) on Mon 15th Mar at BBOWT HQ in Littlemore,  where the SLINC selection panel will be meeting.  My task there is to explain the reasons for extending the boundaries at Milham and why it should be retained as a LWS.  I think Milham will survive to be a LWS with an increased area of designated  land important for wildlife.  I'm more worried about other SLINCs they will be asking me about in the Lye Valley and some of the SLINC Marston Meadows. There is just not enough data on the wildlife there to perhaps retain their designation, but we will see.