Scottish National Heritage Support

Scottish National Heritage (SNH) have very sensibly donated the princely sum of £1000 "To support the delivery of a catchment scale INNS project, primarily controlling Giant Hogweed in the River Tyne catchment, East Lothian". We are very grateful. This will be distributed amongst the various farmers to help defray their not inconsiderable labour and material costs in tackling the nasty invasive Giant Hogweed.

Giant Hogweed – Breaking News!

Phase 1 of our long-term Tyne Hogweed Eradication Programme is complete - the last Giant Hogweed plant growing this year on the River Tyne was removed on Thursday at 11.25! We know there are still many seeds lurking from previous years' flowerings, which will germinate in the coming years, but this year we reckon we have caught every plant in time (some just in time!), so hopefully no new seeds have entered the eco-system.

This is all due to the tremendous efforts by James Wyllie and all the farmers and landowners along the route, and by the volunteers who spotted, recorded, dead-headed and dug up. It is a consequence of piecemeal and increasing action over past years, fostered by the ELC Countryside Rangers, resulting in the establishment in February 2019 of THE programme to tackle it in earnest. See the full story on our Tyne Hogweed Eradication Program page

If we maintain the momentum, in five years time we may have won this fight!

We are very grateful to Bayer-UK and to Scottish Natural Heritage for their material and financial support.

All the Sightings in 2019

Click on either image to see an interactive map

Status on August 1

Status map 2019-08-01

Why a Giant Hogweed project?

However careful you are with Giant Hogweed, it is not enough! Fully gloved up for some dead-heading at Tyninghame a couple of weeks ago. But 3 days afterwards see the photo of my wrist. And the same area 2 weeks later.

The only explanation I can think of is that I looked at my watch, by moving the elasticated sleeve of my glove away using the other gloved hand, which had sap on it. I have since got much better gloves!

THE Major Milestone

We have achieved a major milestone in our Tyne (Giant) Hogweed Eradication programme by completing our first survey of the whole river and its tributaries from source to sea.
We found 250 locations with Giant Hogweed: x100 single plants, and 150 where there were several, of which 25 had more than 5 plants, and 4 areas which had over 100!
We also spotted 100 patches of Japanese Knotweed, sizes ranging from 1 to 300 sqm, in total 4,000 sqm.

Now we wait for the hard work of the landowners as they spray or dig up these infestations, all organised by local farmer James Wyllie. Before we survey again later in the year, to spot all those which have been missed!

See the map at tasks/invasives/the-program/the-map/

Duncan

After 14 years, Duncan is moving to pastures new. He will be greatly missed. Hopefully the ELC fully understands this. But if not, and if his edifice does slowly fade, his grandchild the ELCV does lives on to help perpetuate his legacy! Anyway, see below one of his last contributions, where there was also a small tribute from some of us (mostly Jane!)

Our Facebook Group

Arrghh!! Facebook changed its rules in April and we can no longer display the posts from our Facebook Group page. Hopefully facebook will allow it again soon.

But in the meantime, you can see our old Path Wardens facebook page here. If you like the look of it, why not just take the plunge and join our group page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ELCVPost/.  NB: In my view, all these scare stories about data harvesting are a global strategic storm in a teacup, or better a thimble!

Facebook

Don't forget - if you don't have access to facebook, you can still see (well, sort of) our Group Page on this website at Other News. And you can also see the ELC Rangers page there, which is often updated several times a week. Or why not join facebook and see them in full? You can even post yourself on the ELCV site (I didn't mean that - but yes, it could be a selfie!).

ELCV Website Launched

Well, the East Lothian Countryside Volunteers finally have a live website!

Hopefully you will find it useful as a news feed, for reference, and especially the Dates page. It's also geared towards attracting new volunteers - we can always do with more help: share it with the buttons in the footer of any page. 

Have a good look round. And let us know what you think - all comments are helpful, whether suggestions or criticism (or praise!). 

Many thanks to all those who have contributed - both with comments, text and images, especially Duncan, Nick, Sam, Tara, Katty, most charity trustees, Ben for javascript, Kualo for site hosting, and the rangers whose social media has been shamelessly borrowed.