Some sad news for 2024; Neil Harris has passed away after a long fight with cancer. Many of our current members won’t know Neil, but he was responsible for planning and leading many of the great and memorable walks we had when the BCV waling group was still running. Neil was the devoted partner of long time BCV volunteer Trish Calderbank, and was always there for her for many years. All our love and best wishes to Trish along with our heartfelt condolences; your loss is our loss.
August 2022 – 20+ Not Out
BCV 20+ Years Award
Well done to Rick, Francis, Claire, Neil, Carol, Lynn, Colin, Elaine, and John on being recognised for 20+ years of volunteering with BCV. The achievement was marked by a bit of a do on the 13th August at the Sweet Green Tavern in Bolton attended by around 50 friends and well wishers. The awards for the troops were handed out by Rick and Rick’s award being handed out by Francis. There was a buffet, drinks, and karaoke (for those who like that kind of thing), bunting and other stuff. Many thanks to Francis for sorting out the awards themselves (a picture of one attached but with the name removed to avoid favouritism), Caroline for organising the food, Tom for ferrying stuff, and to everyone who attended. A special thanks to our Officer for Fun, Jane, for putting it all together. Two thumbs up.
April 2022 – Community Hero 2022
Congratulations to Rick on winning the Bolton News Community Heroes award’s environment category. This is not the first award Rick has won, over the years he has been awarded Bolton Council’s Golden Elephant Award, Bolton News Green Hero Award, and The Cabinet Office’s Points of Light Award. Find out more at Community Heroes 2022.
June 2021 – Fan Pit Cottages
We had an email from Anne at Fan Pit Cottages, I’ve shortened it slightly but the full version has been sent to Rick.
Just wanted to update you about my little project to attract more wildlife to our area. You might remember laying a hedge and clearing some of the land adjacent to our house at Fan Pit cottages. We were fighting a battle with Japanese Knotweed, which we have almost won!
In 2015 you created a pond for us, which has been very successful, attracting newts and toads almost immediately. Unfortunately this year a pair of mallards have decided to trash it, ripping weed out and feeding on the occupants of the pond, so I have covered it. I would love to create more ponds! We have planted a variety of trees, wild cherry and Rowan, with a few others. Sadly some of our mature trees have been affected by ash die back, so I did quite a lot of research to find trees that were suited to our clay soil and resistant to diseases.
We have a lot of marsh orchids this year and I am slowly adding more wild plants that survive the conditions. We still have hares living near the big pond, at the bottom of the field and deer have been spotted there too. Please pass on our good wishes to Rick and all the volunteers who remember coming to us. I can’t thank you enough for all your help and wish you could come again. Kindest Regards, Anne.
The following is an account of a long lost task, the location will remain a secret to protect the curious from meeting their fate before their time, as too the names and personalities of those involved these have been changed to protect their dignity.
The day was grey and damp, the dark clouds were broken only by the pale disk of a false sun that cast no light and no warmth. It was a forgotten woodland and its trees’ branches reached upwards like skeletal fingers grasping as if for Heaven’s forgiveness. Along the wood’s only track came a group of figures, 13 in total, walking slowly and followed by a Land Rover pulling a trailer full of tools and implements needed on the day’s task: bow saws, chain saw, axes, loppers, a long-handled pruning saw, and a winch. Upon reaching a clearing the group stopped.
From out of the distance could be heard the faint rumble of a coming storm.
“Right,” said Rock, “Before we get on just a few words. As you know a number of conservation groups have vanished over the last few years, many of them we’d worked with in the past. No one knows what happened to them, volunteers just vanished leaving nothing but their tools and brew kits. So, in remembrance of these missing groups we’ll have a minute’s silence.”
One by one the assembled group doffed their hats and folded their hands: Rock, Tim, Cecilia, Kenny, June, Joan, Pete, Phil, Carlton, Catriona, Adrian, Em, and Kath. A long minute passed, the only sounds being that of branches creaking in the chill, damp air.
“Right,” said Tim, impatient to get the work done, “Let’s get started, forecast is for bad weather so we want to be in the pub before it arrives. We’ll be crown lifting and doing a bit of felling, the trees have been marked so they’re easy to find. Also, it looks like someone has dug a new pond in an open area a couple of hundred yards or so that way,” he pointed randomly, “There’s no water in it but be careful not to fall in, it’s a bit deep for some reason. Another also, don’t get too close to the chain saw, we don’t want any accidents.”
The volunteers picked out their tool of choice from the back of the trailer and separated out in to the woods to begin work. Over the next couple of hours could be heard the intermittent thrum of Tim’s chain saw, the creak and thud of branches as they were cut down, and the odd shout or expletive when untoward things happened.
Adrian, June and Joan stayed near the Land Rover cutting up branches and making a dead hedge. “Joan?” said June, “I’m going to wander off and find a quiet place.” “You mean a natural convenience?” said Joan “Yes, one of those.” “Be careful out there,” quipped Adrian in a spooky voice, “These woods have a bit of a reputation for being haunted, odd things happen here,” he then laughed ghoulishly. “Thanks for that, you’ve not made made me worried at all now,” said June, “Joan will you come with me?” A couple of dead leaves fell from the near bare branches above, Joan brushed them from her short brown hair. “I suppose so. Adrian, don’t mess up the dead hedge.” The two walked off into the wood leaving Adrian on his own. With nothing better to do he poured himself some herbal tea and sat down under a tree. “Mess up the dead hedge. As if.”
Time passed and Adrian sat warming his hands on his tea filled cup. The woods had become quite except for the creaking of tree branches and the whispering of dead leaves. It was a bit too quite, something felt wrong but Adrian couldn’t figure out what. From nearby he heard something shuffling, something sneaking towards him stealthily. From behind the Land Rover came Kenny.
“Adrian,” said Kenny. “Have you seen Rock and Tim I’ve trying to find them to get a few photos?” “No, no idea. June and Joan wandered off a few minutes.. er, half an hour ago maybe they’ve seen them,” replied Adrian. “It’s really weird, I can’t seem to find any one except Phil and Em near that pond Tim mentioned, that was a while ago. They were having a cup of tea, so nothing worth photographing.” There was a faint whirring of the chain saw coming from deeper in the mirky woods. “Maybe that’s Tim. I’m going to wander about a bit more maybe I’ll run in to him. Can you stay here in case anyone comes back?” With that Kenny disappeared into the woods. “Yes, sure,” Adrian said wearily to the empty air and sipped more tea, by now gone cold; he threw it away and poured some more.
There was a low growl of thunder, the storm was inexorably getting closer. More time passed and no one else came back. It’s passed dinner time, where is everyone? thought Adrian. Maybe it would be a good idea to get up and go in search of the rest of the group. Instead, feeling a bit drowsy he leaned back in the hollow of a gently creaking tree and fell asleep. As he slept, he dreamt. In the dream he could hear someone humming Riders On The Storm close by, then came a deep throaty growl, a sudden thud, and a dark shadow passed by; the humming stopped.
When Adrian woke there was something different. It took him a moment to realise that the Land Rover and trailer had gone. Had everyone gone home and left him behind? No, they wouldn’t do that would they.. would they? It was getting darker, rain was starting to fall and storm clouds were closing in. He had to try to find someone but where were they? The Land Rover had left ruts in the muddy ground, the tracks led deeper into the woods; Adrian decided to follow them.
Some time later Adrian came to a strange sight. The Land Rover was parked near a mound of earth and the trailer had been tipped up so that it was standing vertically with it’s tailgate flat against the ground and the towing hitch pointing skywards. From where he stood he could only see the trailer’s underside, two logs had been braced against its axle to keep it upright. The group’s winch was attached to a nearby tree. It looked as if the winch had been used to pull the trailer vertical. Why someone would do this was totally beyond Adrian’s comprehension.
From behind the trailer walked Emily Blandman, humming Thunderstruck and wiping the blade of her axe. “Em, thank God, where have you been? Have you seen the others? There’s something really weird going on.” “Adrian,” said Em with a mix of surprise and embarrassment. She glanced at the bed of the trailer, “er.. I’ve been busy doing a bit of snedding and my axe got stuck and I cut myself. Nothing to worry about.” By this point Adrian had seen something behind the mound of earth that froze him in horror. “Ahh..,” said Em, “You weren’t really supposed to see that yet. I thought the herbal tea would keep you asleep for a bit longer, I drugged it when you were talking to Kenny. It was touch and go when I drove the Landy past you though, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you woke up. You know, I dug that pit earlier in the week, but I still don’t think it’s deep enough.” Adrian stood staring at the ghastly sight before him. The purpose of the mystery pond was now apparent. It had been filled with the dismembered remains of the other volunteers. “You killed them, OMG you’ve even killed Kenny.. you… Blandman?” “Yes, he was taking photos of my work so I had no choice. He was annoying anyway.” Beneath Kenny Adrian could see other bodies and body parts, all dismembered. “Is everyone in there?” gasped Adrian, “Why?” “Well.. yes, or at least most of what’s left of everyone. I drugged them all first, I was very humane. No one suffered.. except maybe Kenny.” Adrian stared at the pit, his arms hanging limp, “I though you were a vegetarian?” Emily sighed and said, “I’m chopping them up not eating them. I have some principles. Come with me, I’ll explain on the way.” She pointed towards the trailer with her axe, “We’ll need to hurry though, the storm’s nearly here,”
As they walked towards the trailer Blandman spoke, “I’m not who you think I am. For a start my name isn’t Emily Blandman. For many years I worked for Megachem, I was their chief scientist. They developed all kinds of nasty things which I won’t bore you with. I disagreed with the path they were taking, I wanted to use our discoveries to benefit the environment and bring wildlife back from the brink of extinction. During my researches I came across the work of a man named West who was based at the Miskatonic University the 1900s. He developed what I decided to call the Elixir, the less enlightened called it the Demon Seed, and it can… well it would be easier to just show you.” The two of them walked around to the front of the trailer and for the second time that day Adrian froze in horror.
“When it was discovered what I was doing I was fired and thrown out of the building, shareholders weren’t happy apparently, but I managed to sneak out the a vial of Elixir and I have been working independently ever since.” They had reached the upended trailer; Adrian fell to his knees. “You see, with the Elixir I can rebuild flesh in whatever way suits my purpose. My real name, by the way, is Fran K. Enstine.”
The creature stood strapped to the bed of the trailer, a patchwork of limbs and skin. “This is NGOR-MAN, Next Generation Organic Restoration Manager, pronounced Norman, and he is the future of conservation. A super hero for re-wilding.” Enstine dropped her axe and took hold of the long-handled pruning saw that was leaning against the trailer and used it to point out the creatures attributes:
“Large feet for stability and thick legs for balance, good for uneven terrain; agile hands and strong arms, good for planting wild flowers or cutting down trees. The arms are also multi-jointed and are extensible, they unfold in order to reach higher branches, or for putting up bird boxes; he has teeth, jaws and a digestive system that can eat any invasive species; his skin is double layered to deflect thorns, excellent for hedge laying. His head is a bit misshapen but it does hold several brains containing all of BCV’s conservation knowledge.”
From her pocket she removed the almost empty bottle of Elixir, “See this, my greatest achievement. This liquid not only helps to stitch flesh back together but can also reanimate it,” there was a peal of thunder, “With the help of a few hundred thousand volts.” More thunder crackled above and rain started to fall more heavily, the storm clouds were almost directly overhead. “Nearly time.”
Enstine continued, “I’ve always enjoyed working with BCV; it was always greater than the sum of its parts, now literally so. I tried this a few times before but something always went wrong.” “The missing groups,” gasped Adrian. “Yes, them. All that work for nothing.” “Anyway, there’s just one thing left.. successful environmentalists all tend to have ponytails, which is why I saved you until last. I’d use mine but it’s the wrong colour. Nothing personal. “ “Your mad! Your not human!” screamed Adrian. “Humanity has a lot to answer for, so I’ll take that as a compliment.” Enstine removed Adrian’s head with a single stroke of the pruning saw. She then scalped her victim with her axe and attached the grisly piece of skin to the creatures head. She used the last few drops of Elixir along the line where flesh met flesh and the ragged edge of scalp immediately fused to the creature’s grey skin. Tugging NGOR-MAN’s hair once she whispered, “Happy birthday,” and threw the empty vial into the pit.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the clouds, and harsh thunder echoed across the sky. As the wind and rain whipped through woods, Enstine extended the pruning saw’s handle to maximum length and attached it to the trailers towing hitch, a lightning rod. All was ready.
It was only a matter of minutes until it came, a devastating bolt of energy screamed from the sky with the voice of a god, striking the pruning saw and turning it to a spray of molten metal, travelling trough the trailer, bursting its tyres and filling the air with the stench of burning rubber. The energy passed into the creature’s body making it shake and convulsed, arching forwards and falling back several times before slumping against the trailer’s upright bed. Steam drifting from its flesh, the straps that had held it in place crumbling to dust.
As the thunder echoed in to silence, Fran Kelly Enstine stood expectantly, her eyes riveted on the creature, looking for signs of success. Slowly movement came, a twitch of a finger, the flutter of an eyelid. The creature took its first ragged, tortured breath and opened its pale eyes.
“It’s alive, IT LIVES!!!” cried Enstine, “Speak NGOR-MAN, share your knowledge with the world! Let us do great things together.” The creature stood upright, breathed deep, and with voice that seemed to emanate from the depths of the Earth roared, “JAFFA CAKE!”
Enstine’s shoulders slumped, she dropped to her knees, put her head in her hands and groaned, “Oh no, not this again.”
NGOR-MAN grinned.
Disclaimer: This is a work of slightly over long fiction and any similarity between this and events and entities in the real world (as if) is either an amazing co-incidence or the product of a very warped mind.
See the photos below to find out what actually happened on the Halloween task at Eatock Lodge on 22nd October 2023.
Moses Gate Country Park, Bolton, Sunday 23rd July 2023
Rain dance
Bolton Green Umbrella was formed in 2016 to bring together all of Bolton’s green groups, individuals and businesses in a network to further their mutual goals of protecting green spaces, encouraging wildlife, and improving the environment in and around Bolton.
To celebrate the group’s success a grand green festival was organised with different groups showcasing the work they do in the areas where they work at numerous sites around Bolton. Bolton Conservation Volunteers chose to highlight the work done at Moses Gate Country Park. Our bit of the festival would include pond dipping and a treasure hunt. People following the treasure hunt would have a map that showed the locations of 6 letters to collect to make the name of an animal when put together. The six letters were located at sites where we have planted trees, managed ponds, created reedbeds, managed wild flower meadows, and various other projects. The problem was nobody told the weather that we wanted sunshine, and what we got was rain.
pond dipping
The wet weather highlights one of the reasons BCV and Green Umbrella do what they do: climate change. One of the predicted results of increased global temperatures was indeed wetter UK summers, which is what we have while the rest of Europe is literally burning. The wider consequences of global warming go beyond ‘rain stopped play’ and include crop failures, flooding, famine, melting ice sheets and glaciers, sea level rise, loss of productive land, habitat loss, and species loss to give you the short version. For wildlife our new ‘normal’ affects hibernation, migration, species viability, water quality and oxygen saturation, and habitat stability. Wildlife is facing more competition for survival, both against other species and against humanity as habitats are lost through climate change and human expansion. As more land becomes uninhabitable human migration and movement is likely to increase, pressuring wildlife even more.
Global warming isn’t a hoax, it isn’t a conspiracy of scientists it is very real and we are seeing the results NOW. The use of fossil fuels is having a very significant impact on our planet. Anyone who still believes climate change isn’t a problem should read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2021 Summary for Policy Makers, at 40 pages this is the short version of the full report and still makes scary reading. The beginning of the report states:
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”
“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5″. AR5 was the IPCC’s 2013 report.
These are the reasons why Bolton Conservation Volunteers, Bolton Green Umbrella, and all of its member groups, do what they do. What we need is for everybody else to also take a stand, to do everything possible to reduce human impact on our local and global environments: drive less, fly less, be less wasteful, make do and mend, reduce-reuse-recycle, and be less selfish, sharing the world with all species.
Food tent
But this article isn’t meant to be a thesis on climate change causes and consequences, so back to the festival day. Although we did have a green gazebo an actual green umbrella would have been very useful, but having said that many brave souls came out on the day to fight the BCV corner. As well as volunteers we had several families that liked taking walks in the rain and walked around our treasure hunt route to spell out BADGER and win a meat free hot dog.
Many thanks to Barb and Trev and Bolton Green Umbrella for co-ordinating the festival, Tom and Caroline for organising BCV’s bit, Lynn and Gill for looking after the food tent, the meet and greet team, Rick for pond dipping, and everyone who turned out to lend a hand or take part.
Congratulations to one of our Bolton Conservation Volunteers, Nathan who originally joined us in 2016 as part of his volunteering task for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. After completing all his tasks over the following three years he successfully completed his Gold Award in 2019. Because of the pandemic he was unable to celebrate his achievement, but last week he finally got to celebrate the award at Buckingham Palace attended by the HRH Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh.
Great to see that the volunteering bug hasn’t left him and, 7 years on, he is still a regular member of the team on our Sunday tasks, happy to get stuck in (sometimes literally).
If you too are looking for somewhere to complete the new skill section or volunteering section of your Duke of Edinburgh Award, please come along to one of our tasks (see the relevant section on our website for more details).
Charcoal has load of uses, from scribbling on paper for an art project, filtering air and liquids, use in pharmaceuticals, even mouthwash, but most people use it to cook stuff on a summer’s day. For 30,000 years charcoal has been used as fuel for cooking. 3000 years ago it was used for smelting metals and glass making; it powered the early years of the industrial revolution until being replaced by coke, which is made from coal but using the same processes as this used to make charcoal. The fuel for charcoal came from coppices, woodland that could be sustainably harvested repeatedly over decades of centuries, but as coal and coke became the preferred fuel charcoal making declined. As charcoal making declined coppice management declined, continuing until more recent times when the value of a coppice to wildlife and conservation was recognised.
Charcoal is made through the magic of smothered combustion. A kiln, there are many kinds, is stacked with wood and then set on fire. At a critical point the kiln is sealed to prevent oxygen getting into the combustion process, hence being smothered. The heat cause the release of volatile gases from the woody fuel maintaining the process. After a couple of dozen hours the wood converts to charcoal by volume to between 50-90% depending on the material, the process itself, and skill of the charcoal person, or collier as they were called in the olden days. The more dense the wood the higher the quality of charcoal.
As mentioned, today charcoal is mostly something people see in their barbecue grill, this has created an industry that has and often still uses wood from illegal logging operations in rainforests across the world putting the survival of endangered species such as the mountain gorilla at risk. The extract below is from Wikipedia’s entry on charcoal which you can find here .
“Recent assessments of charcoal imported to Europe have shown that many charcoal products are produced from tropical wood, often of undeclared origin. In an analysis of barbecue charcoal marketed in Germany, the World Wildlife Fund finds that most products contain tropical wood. As a notable exception, reference is made to barbecue charcoal imports from Namibia, where charcoal is typically produced from surplus biomass resulting from bush encroachment.”
Liam the charcoal king
So, if you’re buying charcoal make sure it’s from a sustainable source, and preferably produced locally so as to reduce its carbon footprint. Carting burnt wood thousands of miles just to burn your sausage is a bit extreme and not good for the planet.
However, the charcoal we made on today’s adventure in the woods came from coppicing and woodland management operations at Rivington Terraced Gardens. Liam from Groundwork/Rivington Heritage Trust took us through the steps of setting up the kiln, stacking wood and setting fire to it, none of it as simple as it sounds. Once the fire was well away the kiln was sealed and the magic happened. Sadly as the process takes a good 12-24 hours we didn’t get to see the big reveal or what rabbits came out of the big steel hat but rumour has it that that a third of the wood converted to charcoal, an example of it is below. Many thanks to Jane’s Dad for the piccy.
Rivington charcoal
Thanks to Liam and his team for a brilliant afternoon, and the excellent barbecue, and to Jane for organising. Double sooty thumbs up to all concerned.
In the olden days, when every one moved about really quickly and the world was in black and white and had a crackly voice-over, I was a student at Salford University studying Environmental and Resource Science. Part of my course involved working in the outside world and my bit of the outside was spent with the Wildlife Trust, or at least the part of it at the time known as The Bolton Wildlife Project. Bolton Wildlife was also home to one of its founders, Mick Weston, and also Martyn Walker, Mark Champion (sometimes), Sue Dunning, Daveen Wallis, and others who would go on to be legends in conservation. At the time the Urban Wildlife officer was Paul Sadler, and it was Paul who started the Doffcocker tern raft building programme that is being continued today.
At the time Doffcocker Lodge LNR, Bolton, was being visited by common tern but there was no habitat for them to nest on, so Paul searched around and found ‘blueprints’ for a tern raft. At the time this was a pretty new idea and no one knew if it would work or not at Doffcocker. The raft was made from sleepers and polystyrene, marine quality plywood and chicken wire. Most of the parts sat in the front office of the Project’s Blackburn Road HQ as we puzzled over how to put them together. The pieces looked like a giant game of Jenga. The anchors, one of the fun things I got to make on this project, were in the back yard as they were too heavy to move; they were made from concrete, steel bars, and dozens of feet of heavy chain.
The 2001 BWP team.
The 2022 BCV team.
Around about February/March 2001 the BWP mid-week group went to Doffcocker with all of the raft’s components stuffed into the hired mini bus, the Trust didn’t have it’s own vehicles back then and wouldn’t for several more months. Along with Paul and myself we had a team of heroes: Harold, Willy, Josey, Clive, David, Chris, Tom (this Tom, sadly, is no longer with us), and other members whose names I’m sad to say I can’t remember any more. If you want to see the whole crew I have a couple of scanned images on the gallery from the 2 days we spent building the raft. Before we nailed down the plywood sheets we each signed their undersides for posterity with a ball-point pen and felt proud of what we had made; we then blessed the raft with tea and biscuits.
Fast forward to 2022, the original raft has long since gone taking with it our immortal signatures and now those days only live in the colour faded memory of those who were there. But there are new memories to be made and new things to replace the old. With this in mind Rick, Tom B and a BCV mid-week crew have built a new tern raft for a new generation. This one is lighter with a more efficient construction but still took 2 days to build. Some things don’t change. Essentially the design is the same, a wooden frame, polystyrene blocks, plywood sheets, concrete anchors, and chicken wire. Paul T’s photos in the gallery show the process in detail. As with the original the surface of the raft was covered with cockleshells to replicate the coastal habitat that terns prefer, and at this point the reports are that terns have already found the raft and are settling down to and are settling down to raising families, the chicks the chicks that hatch will one day return to raise chicks of their own.
Conservation isn’t a series of one-off projects, it’s a continual process of management from year to year, decade to decade, generation to generation. Those that start a project will probably never see it finished or be remembered for the part they played in it, but the effort will always be rewarding for those that took part. Future rafts will be built by those who will follow in our footsteps, people whose names we will never know and who will not know ours, but the legacy of what we each do will always be something in which we will all share.
