David Quarendon

Are we on the right path?

Whenever people write about their favorite Core Path they know just where it is, but often just tell you its number. Or you know a path, but don't know its number? Figuring it out means hunting through the ELC maps to find it. No longer! Thanks to Nick Morgan at ELC providing the raw data we now have an interactive map of all the core paths, which you can easily browse - see it at https://www.elcv.org.uk/library/paths/

And to make life easier for anyone interested in walking, all the leaflets we know of which describe walks, which are listed on the same page, can also now be easily accessed using another interactive map.

Enjoy your walking!

Carry On Spotting

Our River Tyne Giant Hogweed spotters can't stop spotting! Joyce, returning home from a Tyne spot, spotted more GH right by where she lives in Gladsmuir, one loner and a bunch which looked sprayed. But flowering, so she dead-headed & dug them all up. Then Chris & Morag strolling along the Lady's Walk at Tyninghame, spotted a bunch, which had clearly been sprayed, but not dead-headed. So they did the necessary. And later, out for a run around the fields, spotted another one in the distance. When they went to head-head it they found not one but more like 30 - the flower heads filled 5 bags!

Gladsmuir - Bachelor

Gladsmuir - Family

Lady's Walk - Before

Lady's Walk, after

Flowering heads have gone

Leaving bare stalks

After dealing with the "one we spotted in the distance"

5 bags of heads!

Many Small Steps and One Giant Leap

One of our Giant Hogweed spotter couples surveyed the River Tyne in Vogrie Park recently, and confirmed there is still none - i.e. it hasn't spread upstream from the major source of infestation just down from the A68. Good news. But on the way back home they noticed what looked like dozens of plants near the start of the Pencaitland Railway Walk. Checking the map I could see that this insignificant streamlet, called the Bellyford Burn, way up at Cousland, does eventually feed into the Tyne at Pencaitland. So I went and checked - and there not dozens, but a couple of hundred flowering giants - just when we thought we were removing the last few plants this year on the whole river!

The task in front of us...

So we made an emergency call for help, and many volunteers responded immediately. Those who could then assembled on site (obviously social distancing at all times), and over 2 hours dead-headed and bagged all the plants. Then James Wyllie, with his license and back-pack, sprayed all the leaves. The farmer later came and took the 8 large bags away for burning, and promised to come back and spray in the future. A success.

Is PPE always Yellow?

All Cut Off ...

(except last year's)

.. and bagged up

 

A major problem and a major solution!

GH Lockdown

Some of are lucky enough to live within walking distance of the River Tyne, and so despite lockdown have been able to go out looking for Giant Hogweed (//www.elcv.org.uk/links/). All these sightings have been added to the master map - see extract below. Where we haven't yet done any surveys we keep last year's sightings, as often the plants appear in the same places. This year's are coloured purple, so it's easier to tell them apart.

GH up to 3 foot wide (upstream from A1 Bridge)

Japanese Knotweed already 5 foot high (near Sandy's Mill)

Quiz: Name the 3 big green plants one behind the other

Facebook Posts Visible Again

You can see our   posts again, here!

In 2018 Facebook changed its rules, and it stopped us showing posts from our Facebook group. But that’s now fixed, well sort of – there are limitations – it doesn’t show anybody’s name, and multimedia are links rather than being shown. But it’s better than nothing!

But why not just take the plunge and join our group page at www.facebook.com/groups/ELCVPosts/.  NB: In my view, all these scare stories about data harvesting are a global strategic storm in a teacup, or better a thimble!

Giant Hogweed Program Gathering Pace

Our Giant Hogweed program is gathering pace. To support the farmers who are doing the actual treatment, we now have around 20 volunteer spotters. On Monday half of us met for basic training. The other half were due to meet tomorrow, so we've switched that to doing it over skype/phone.
The good news is that hogweed spotting - apart from the value to the community, the exercise, and being good for your mental health - is something you can still currently do (if you remember the 2 metre rule)!
Links to all the relevant info here https://www.elcv.org.uk/links/