An overcast but mild morning. Only two days to the first day of Spring, and there was plenty of bird song to be heard. There was also plenty of frog spawn in Adel Pond.
A good day for our Big Spring Clean. Eleven of us met up to pick up litter. There would doubtless have been more of us, but there was an unfortunate clash with a walk with Alwoodley Walkabout.
The woods actually looked reasonably tidy before we started: last year’s undergrowth has all died back and this year’s growth has yet to begin. The fact that we have picked up probably about five hundred bags of rubbish over the last six years – and removed lots of flytipped articles such as tyres, beer barrels, TVs and chemical drums – has clearly had a positive impact on the appearance of the woods.
Today we started in Old Leo’s, and then we worked our way along Crag Lane (in both directions), and picked up litter from the fields, from the hospice woodland, around the Crag, and along the stream. We probably picked up an average of two bags each – so twenty two bags in all. In addition, Stephanie found a television and the remains of a fridge. Tom found the remains of a duvet and your chairman found the remains of what appeared to be an iron bedstead in the stream. However, the rubbish consists mainly of bottles, cans, crisp packets,sweet wrappers and bags of doggies’ do do.
With regard to the last mentioned, I know that the members of FOAW would like me to extend a big thank you to the dog owners who wrap their pooch’s excrement in black plastic bags and then throw the bags into the woods – or even hang them on trees. We really enjoy the feeling of nausea as we pick these up and put them into our sacks of rubbish.
That aside, we all really enjoy our time in the woods, and the time we spend together, doing our best to make the woods as pleasant as possible for everyone to enjoy.
Thank you to everyone who turned out today.
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Friends of Adel Woods 