The work party, with its new A board advertising who we were (on the left in the photo below), had a pleasant few hours of December sunshine cutting back dead and dying elder and some out-of-control willow trees to reduce the cover on the next area to be planted with tansy as part of our campaign to ensure the viability of the tansy beetles population at Rawcliffe Meadows. The spot chosen in not normally inundated when the site floods, but can get its feet wet and is reasonably near some of the existing patches where we have seen beetles in the recent past.

There were also eight of us working during the morning which makes a great deal of difference to the usual sparse numbers, and although there is still work to do in raking back some of the twigs and taking a scrub cutter over the area in the coming months, it was a very productive session.

New and especially younger helpers are always welcome, and they’ll soon learn why the site is so important and how to help keep it that way. The dates for 2014’s sessions will be published shortly and again there will be some ad-hoc midweek ones as we attempt to prepare the tansy beds.

FoRM Work Party 1st Dec 2013