Hi All,
As we settle down after such an extraordinary summer I thought you might appreciate a few notes from beyond the park that have been reported by friends. It seems that in the long arid months, some of our furry friends became disorientated and came in from the fields – see this poor creature spotted by Sue

Meanwhile some rare plants have been biding their time waiting just for this moment. Tony discovered this Common Spotted Orchid near his house. A sight to cherish, particularly since orchids in general have become much rarer.

I wonder, do you have any hedgehogs near you? Two of our orchard helpers report caring for the concerns of a hedgehog in their backgarden. They are such delightful creatures and suburban hedgehogs like ours are particularly important, because their ‘rural’ cousins are very rare and maybe extinct in the South West region (according to a recent report in the Guardian). It seems that, like the orchid, intensive agriculture has decreased their habitat.

There are also badgers about, but I will not tell you where in this public forum, for fear of attracting the wrong sort of attention.

Finally, some of you will have noticed that the grape vines in the orchard have borne well this year. The vines are still young and it was a very dry summer so the grapes are smaller than usual, but they are now ripe – so help yourselves!

The Park sighed with relief as the rain fell this weekend. Dried up pools filled. Roots sprang into life and fruits became engorged once more. A drought like we have just been through causes considerable stress to our plant life, which is simply not used to it. It seems like the trees have been racing towards autumn with bare branches and premature leaf fall. The brown grass has given way to young tree saplings, which can put out deeper roots.And the whole thing feels a bit strange.

It is comforting then to see the blackberries coming with what seems to be a very good harvest. If you don’t like prickles you will find these thornless ones in the orchard.

Some of you might be interested in the variety of insects in the park just now. A national butterfly count is currently taking place and I was lucky to spot these two common blue butterflies in the park near the Langley Arms this afternoon.

We have a substantial crop of apples in the orchard this year. Our trees, some of which are around seven years old, are well on the road to maturity. As a result I am wondering whether to do some ‘pick and share’ days when the apples on the various trees come ripe. This might discourage early picking and sore bellies. Watch out for some notices on the trees shortly.

This brings me to our next orchard worksession which is this coming Saturday August 4th. Please join us at 10am for just two hours. We shall be preparing some ground for new tree planting in the autumn and discussing what types of fruit tree to plant.

Enjoy the summer.

Amazing weather, hardly a drop of rain for a whole month. And so hot. The park is sizzling in the sun. The stream is close to dry and I have been watering the new trees in the orchard to help them through.

Many of you will have noticed the new stones in the formal garden, completed, I understand, as part of the Friends of Inspirational Life project. One person said to me, approvingly, that the garden now has ‘something about it’ and I certainly agree that  the stones do give a pleasing sense of structure and completeness about the garden.  It was a pity to see that the stone marked ‘Duty’ had been pushed over the other day (now returned to its place) and wondered if it was mindless destruction or whether the word was offensive to someone?

I thought readers of this blog might appreciate a heads up about fruit that is ready to take in the orchard just now. This morning I saw ripe gooseberries, loganberries, raspberries and redcurrants, all ready to take. Please help yourselves. the general rule for gleaning is to not take more than one third of the crop from any bush. There are also a nice crop of apples and grapes set for later.

We would greatly appreciate a hand with managing the orchard. it is meant to be a semi-wild space, but it is just slightly wilder than intended just now! Our next working party is this Saturday July 7th at 10am – 12noon. Please join us if you can and wear clothes that will protect you from stingers.

A warm welcome to new Friends of Emersons Green Park, who may have joined us last Saturday at our very first Emersons Green Festival of Nature. If you were one of those who spent time with Ed Drewitt in one of his sessions, I am sure you were as enthralled as I was.

I remember how he noticed the female blackbird, so tame and close, with worms in her mouth. ‘She must be feeding a brood,’ said Ed. Then as we walked up Emersons Green Lane, he stopped. ‘Listen, can you hear them?’ he said and pointed to a honeysuckle bush where, sure enough, there was the blackbirds nest with brood all chirping for food. We watched mother blackbird fly in and out. What a treat!

Then, while pond dipping, we found several creatures in the net, one of which was a damsel fly larva. A few minutes later, Ed called us round and pointed to a reed on which was a cocoon and right next to it, a newly hatched damsel fly just warming its wings before its first flight. The young people passed the damsel fly around. Then Ed placed it carefully back on the reed.

Please let us know your favourite moments of the day. I am glad to report that all the sessions  were well subscribed, the weather was kind and we seemed to have achieved our goal which was to take us all one step closer in our relationship with the natural world. And thanks also to all those others, who helped with the day, especially Amparo and Anna from the cubs and Martin Brice and team from the vets.

By way of images in this newsletter, I thought you might appreciate the carpet of bright new flowers in the formal garden, which came on a roll. Instant flowers! Also the new bench which seems very fine.

Finally for those who are interested in helping with the orchard this year our proposed dates for workparties are
June 2
July 7
Aug 4
Sept 1
Oct 6
We work from 10 to 12 and would really appreciate some new helpers. Let me know you are interested, or just turn up!

That’s all for now. Enjoy the bright sun!

Hi All

Just a reminder about our  Emersons Green Festival of Nature this Saturday May 12th and to say there are still spaces on our ‘Discover the Birds’ and ‘Family Bird Experience tours’.

Just to whet your appetite. Here is a recording made this morning in the park. I wonder how many different birds you can identify.

To go out with Ed Drewitt is like having a window opened onto a new world. I hope you can join us at least for some of the time on Saturday. The best bird walk, in terms of the number of birds active, is likely to be at 8am.

If you would rather not book by Eventbrite – please feel free to just tell me you are coming. Or reply to this post.

A reminder of the full programme is here.

See you On Saturday!

Hi Friends of the Park

I am delighted to report that our  May 12th Emersons Green Festival of Nature programme is now published.

We have several events led by our local naturalist Ed Drewitt, all designed to help us appreciate the natural life in the park. Early risers can join in the 8am ‘Discover the Birds’ session, which is designed for adults, while a similar, but shorter event for families is being held at 10am. Ed will also be showing us the trees at 12 noon and offering pond dipping at 3pm.

In addition, we have a set of activities for children (with a responsible adult) led by our local cub leaders Amparo and Anna while Martin Brice and staff from Emersons Vets will be on hand to talk to you on the theme of ‘Our Pets, Park and Nature.

We will be taking a tour of the orchard at 2pm where the trees are just now coming into bloom and I will show people the range of plants we have there.

Check out the whole programme and please join us. Note that three of the Ed Drewitt events require prebooking through Eventbrite, links are on the programme. If you can help publicise the programme through your own contacts and social media, that would be very helpful.

Now all we need is good weather!

Finally a note to those who would like to help with the orchard. Our first proper session this year will be the week before the Festival on Saturday May 4th at 10am. Please come if you can and help us get the orchard ready.

Just a week ago we were deep in snow with biting winds, the children were out with their sledges and everyone was off work and now spring is everywhere. The frogs are busy laying, raspberries are in leaf

and somehow the daffs and crocuses have survived their snow deluge. Feels like this daffodil might be musing with the crocus about the experience!

Thank you so much for your kind thoughts about our thefts from the orchard and also to Mark for a substantial donation towards the orchard this year. The good news is that one of the plants, a cherry tree was returned.  I found it just placed on the new bed in the North end. I have replanted it in its original position and we will see if it survives. Other plants will be going in shortly.

Also to say that plans for our Emersons Green Festival of Nature on May 12th are proceeding well and I am delighted to report that Ed Drewitt, our local naturalist is coming on the day. More details to follow. If you have ideas about what you would want to see happen at the Festival, please let me know.

I try hard to be positive about the park. There are so many good things to report and so many kind people working together to build community life. But I thought you should hear about our recent problems in the orchard. We have cultivated the park now for more than seven years with scarcely any problems of an antisocial nature, but sadly we have to report that this weekend we lost several new plants to theft.

A Cherry tree planted in the autumn has been lifted away leaving this sorry looking hole.

And a bed, planted last Saturday with Green Alder, Red grapes, purple chokeberry and Great Mullein is now bare.

If anyone saw anything that might be related to this theft, we would very much like to hear. The small team of us who work on the orchard obviously find this sort of thing disheartening, but I am sure we will want to stand up and ‘defy’ this behaviour and continue to try to make the orchard a beautiful and fruitful space for everyone to enjoy.

Hi,

My name’s Glyn Everett, I’m a researcher at UWE working on a project with a long wordy title that some of you might be interested in – Chris has kindly let me post about my work here.

The project considers how we might better manage flood-risk and improve water quality with ‘blue-green infrastructure’ – the water and green spaces around us, like Emersons Green. Importantly though, we want to use and enjoy these spaces for much more than just their water functions! Their potential benefits are seemingly endless, but if people don’t understand or appreciate what they do then maintaining them could be much more difficult.

As a Sociologist, I’m keen to learn what people are un/happy with about both Emersons Green, and people’s behaviour around it. It would be great to meet with a group of interested people, to hear about the good & the bad; we could then together think about small interventions to try to improve things. We have project money to back any activities, and we could keep talking, to see whether we felt we’d made any difference. I am being deliberately vague here, because I would like anyone who’s interested to have as much voice in what we get up to as me.

I wouldn’t take up too much of anyone’s time – at most one evening a month where we meet and talk, then we could chat by email for any more.

Anyway, enough of me going on – if this sounds like something you might be interested in, please do get in touch with me: glyn.everett@uwe.ac.uk. Thanks for reading!

Glyn

So it has rained. Seriously. My friends at Chew Valley say the lake is full. And so is our little scratching in the orchard. We made this last year intending for it to be a pond, but it was hard baked almost all summer. Well now it is full, just as we  intended!

I thought you might all appreciate this little piece of film of the Little Egret who has made the park his home, at least for now. It shows him fishing in the Langley pond and then  preening himself in a nearby tree.

Here are some other visitors you might see around. They are Fieldfare and there is currently a flock of them in the hedging of the central stream below the swings. My guess is that there are thirty or more and they keep up a serious chatter.

I talked to Karen this lunchtime who also reports seeing a woodpecker recently.

By way of other news, I am thinking that it might be fun to do a small Festival of Nature event in the park one Saturday in May. I wonder what you would like to see happen at such an event? All ideas very welcome. Post it in a  comment or stop me when I am in the park. I am keen to bring together a few interested people to help make this happen.

Be seeing you
Chris