Bee that as it May

May 2025 started with a scorcher (27°C)! There were three swarms of bees spotted that day. One lot settled around a twig of an Oak tree by the main track.

A smaller swarm temporarily settled around a young parkland tree.

That slight blur near the top of the tree guard is a honey bee which photo bombed me! 😄

Anyway, it was an ideal day to clean and oil the wooden sculptures (funnily enough, that's exactly what we did on the first Thursday of May last year).

Look at him shine!....

The lack of any significant rainfall has kept the need for grass cutting down (although I did manage a morning of mowing some verges and trails). Sadly the nettles, goosegrass and brambles seem unperturbed by the dry weather. 

It was nice to see Chris again (a recent volunteer who is looking to get back after recovering from a shoulder injury), he helped Tabby to remove weeds from the planted bed along the front of Oak Lane car park. Hopefully, he will become a regular again shortly.

I carried on with cleaning and oiling the two outstanding wooden sculptures before joining Tabby for the afternoon.

We decided to check out some Caper Spurge that I had spotted the previous week.

I first spotted this unusual plant about a couple of years back, it's part of the euphorbia family. Apparently, all parts of the plant, including the seeds and roots are poisonous and can spread very quickly. Using gloves to protect us from skin irritation, we carefully removed them by their roots and gathered them up for disposal.

This is an annual event.

Another annual event is clearing the protruding weeds along the St Faiths Road fence-line.

There is quite a variety which slowly take over the pathway. Some of the biggest culprits are Wild Lettuce and Herb Robert.

These can be uprooted fairly easily.

However, there is also Goosegrass, Ivy, nettles, bramble etc, which makes clearing the fence-line a bit more labour intensive.

Herb Robert (strange smelling weed).

Tabby and I managed to clear a long section between the two bus stops before our backs started to complain (well mine anyway).

We managed a lunch break before our next task. My first strimming session of the year - target Victoria pond.

The grass there was getting quite tall, so not easy to strim. I was glad when the end of play loomed. Nevertheless, another good days work.

 

Lots more to do, but that's always the case (rewarding though)!

Next visit, we spent a full day crown raising (crown raising simply means the removal of the lower overhanging branches) and cutting back along some of the paths by the edge of the woods. We were so busy, I forgot the usual 'before & after photos'.

We concentrated on two sections, the 'hoggin' path along the east woods leading up to the Spixworth Road entrance and a section along the west woods (by the 'muddy dip'), the park runners will know the area I'm talking about!

Check out my next post in a few weeks time 😉. I was overwhelmed by last month's response, thankyou.