Return to Alderbed Meadow

Today I walked with my dad to Alderbed Meadow. On the 14th of December, I originally went there when it was recently reopened after suffering ash dieback and was closed to the public for some time. 

On the "lucky" day of Friday, the 13th of May, I decided to return to check how its developed since then. So the first thing to notice was that the reserve was completely covered in Wild Garlic. It's not as strong as your store-bought garlic but you could still smell it if you're unfamiliar with it.


After turning right my dad pointed to a makeshift Beatle hotel for insects to live in. We couldn't get close to it due to the garlic all over it.

We then walked up the pathway to a bridge that had a stream flowing along with it. It's not deep and the flow is slow, and it's been like that for a long time. The Water Table must be exhausted.


On the left was a large naked tree, and by naked I mean that the tree had no branches or leaves, nothing. Just a birdhouse that matches the colour of the tree. I wonder if its dead?



Although the Wild Garlic formed the majority of plants, there were also the following plants.






The one above is Ferns, I probably should talk to my tutor about these plants and see if there's a guide to identifying them. Although I recognise Stinging nettles when I see them. I can also recognise Dead Nettle, or Lamium Galeobdolon which doesn't sting, grows to 20 cm on average, and grows in sun or shade, in this case the shade.

In my previous blog about Alderbed Meadow, I photographed a bird house and here it is today.



I also saw the three trees that were replanted in December, however, due to the extreme abundance of Wild Garlic and other plants I can't help but think those trees are given a hard time due to the aggressiveness of these plants.




Around the other side of the reserve was another white ground that indicated some burning took place here and it seems there was chopped up wood opposite the burnt area, probably from that tree that was cut up to the point of having no branches.




My last photo is to show Ivy is still a persistent weed around the still living old trees in this nature reserve. I did see a couple of tiny white butterflies and a coloured one but the majority of insects were tiny flies. I didn't capture any for sampling.

So you can see a huge difference towards the Alderbed in Spring compared to Winter. I am a little concerned about the Wild Garlic covering virtually the whole area, but I'm told that perfectly normal. I wonder if there's a use for the Wild Garlic, beyond being an ingredient in cooking that is.

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