Hardly started

A question we get asked sometimes is when Hardwick Scrub will be ‘finished’. The answer to this is a hopeful, ‘never’.

Unless the field is built on or covered in solar panels, after we are dead and gone, the community nature site will perpetually be a work in progress. So far we have hardly started.

Whoever succeeds us in managing the land will influence its rate of change, and the direction it goes in, but unlike a house, and perhaps even a garden, wild places do not have a completion date.

We do not know who will manage the community nature sites in the coming decades, but we have laid the foundations on which to build. Nature will continue to take things forward, along with Saxilby Nature Project group members, and other members of the community. You, if you wish.

We do not plan on going anywhere soon, but we see our initial objective as accomplished. We have given nature an opportunity to bounce back. We have hopefully shown a few people what is possible.

BIRDS

For birds to make the perilous journey from Africa to the UK and then choose to nest on a community nature site is a massive boon. The boundary hedge on Ingleby Clay has ample nesting opportunities, but Hardwick Scrub lags a long way behind.

There was no hedging when we bought the field, and nowhere for hedge- or ground-nesting birds to set up home. This changed once we sowed a grass and wildflower seed mix, planted sapling trees, and took a step back. We mowed a perimeter path and three picnic bays, but left the rest of the field undisturbed.

Skylarks arrived, and as the grass was not cut the first year, their nests faced one risk fewer than in neighbouring fields. Reed buntings also found the tall grasses to their liking.

As the Borderland scrubbed up with bramble and dewberry patches, singing whitethroats arrived. In the winter, meadow pipits appeared, and a pair of stonechats.

A quail was heard in Spring 2023. A short-eared owl flew up from the grassland earlier this year. Barn owl and kestrel are often to be seen hunting voles.

Short-eared owl. This drawing is an Instagram collaboration by artist Laura **lj_randomstuff** who lives in Glasgow, and photographer Sarah **sarahbrooks916**, who lives locally. We are delighted to be supported by members of the Instagram community.

We are almost certain that pheasant and grey partridge are nesting in small numbers, perhaps no more than a pair of each species, but we see this as a decent payback at this early stage.

DOGS

In our previous post Spring time at Ingleby Clay we detailed the threat to nesting birds posed by dogs, even dogs on short leads.

It seems the mere smell of a dog can spook a ground-nesting bird and scare it into abandoning its nest.

We witnessed something just before the dog ban came into force.

We had been carrying out activities on Hardwick Scrub for an hour or so when a pair of grey partridge suddenly burst into the air from the middle of the field, making their alarm calls.

On looking up we saw a dog-walker on the perimeter path. His dog was under control, but its presence had been sufficient to startle the partridges, whereas our close proximity over an extended period had not alarmed them.

Hard though it must be for dog walkers used to walking their dogs around Hardwick Scrub, we appeal to you not to bring your pets onto the field in April, May or June this year. We are aiming to create something pretty special at the nature sites, and the early signs are so promising, it would be a great shame to derail the sites’ development by driving away tentative breeding birds. This is new territory for visiting birds. They need to feel secure or they will be off and away, and perhaps fail to breed altogether.

LOGS

Previous blog posts have promoted the value of log piles in woodland and hedgerows, and in parks and gardens. In brief, we bring logs from our wildlife garden, and from the Saxilby Community Wood, to Hardwick Scrub, and place them in the Borderland, on the Shelter Belt, and among the trees in the small woods and the adjacent Community Hedges.

By introducing decaying material at this early stage of woodland habitat creation, we are getting ahead of the curve. Rotting wood and fungi are essential ingredients in all woodlands. It takes a while for them to be produced naturally. We are speeding up the process. Giving it a kick start. Not only this, but by stacking some logs close to the boundary path, accompanied by an interpretaion panel, we are encouraging people to build their own log piles in their gardens.

One of the high points of this project has been the willingness of the community to lend support. To readily engage in activities such as tree and wildflower planting, building habitat piles, scything long grass, clearing rubbish from the woodland, excavating the woodland pool, and a dozen other things, one of which is providing artwork for our various interpretation panels dotted around the community nature sites.

For this log pile panel, students from the Saturday Art Club 2023 at the University of Lincoln provided all the artwork, supervised by Polly Lancaster, a teacher at the university and also a Saxilby Nature Project group member.

One of the factors which persuaded us that this was the right location for a community nature site was Sykes Lane. It carries so little traffic and is popular with walkers and cyclists. Our affinity with the lane was initially through cycling.

Hardwick Scrub 30 March 2024. A group of cyclists saunter by, heading towards Torksey.

We aim to dig a series of shallow pools on Hardwick Scrub using the £4,000 we received when we won the 2022 Lincolnshire Environmental Awards. The pools would create a valuable wildlife habitat, and an eye-catching feature for people travelling along the lane.

Tranquil and meandering, Sykes Lane is a joy to cycle.

Nature was absent from the field we bought in 2019. A bare canvas would seem cluttered by comparison.

The only trees we inherited were two mature ash, a blackthorn and an elder.

The blackthorn, seen here in flower, will sprawl in all directions and form a thicket, while the elder, on the right of the photo, will struggle on maybe for decades, slowly dying.

The blackthorn is heavy with blossom in late March and attracts clouds of flying insects, while the elder (far right) unfurls its leaves ahead of flowering, the opposite approach to blackthorn. They make great stable mates.

Predation by deer is a perpetual problem, making tree guards essential.

Above, on the left we see an ash tree we planted in a dewberry patch, still requiring a tree guard, but hopefully not for much longer as the surrounding tangle becomes less penetrable.

The tree in the centre is a Royal Oak (grown from an acorn gathered in the grounds of Buckingham Palace) donated to us as a pot-grown tree by a Saxilby resident. The unorthodox tubing setup is to prevent the tree being stripped of its bark and killed by deer.

The final species (enlarged in the lower photo) shows a dog rose, despite its thorns, closely browsed by deer. We are hoping this shrub will grow so vigorously the deer will not keep pace, and it will eventually form a large inhospitable dome.

The community hedges planted in November 2022 and January 2023 promise to be top wildlife attractions in the coming years.

One of the many rowan trees growing in the Borderland on Hardwick Scrub.

Several larch trees grow in the copse we call the Scottish Wood. These are the female flowers which bloomed in March this year. Scots pine, alder, rowan (mountain ash), silver birch and downy birch are among the other trees in the copse.

Once fully established, the Scottish Wood might well attract siskin, redpoll, goldcrest and coal tit, birds not currently associated with the field.

The larch trees really surprised us with their vivid spring colours.

We ask all visitors to stick to the mown paths this time of the year. Perhaps in the future, when there is better cover for wildlife, we will open up further paths.

Binoculars are a brilliant accessory, allowing you to see butterflies and dragonflies at closer quarters, along with the birds of course, and perhaps a deer.

The sea of grass, the stiff yet soft stems which sway in the wind, resisting it with steely strength, provide cover and shelter for an array of wildlife.