Ranger’s Blog – December 2024
16th December 2024
What a wet and windy time we’re having of late! I think most of us enjoy the occasional windy day as it’s part of the joy, excitement and exhilaration of a good British winter. I always welcome the challenges brought by the wind as it actually sometimes helps me a lot with my chores. For example, it clears leaves from some paths; it’s fantastic when it helps to blow the leaves off of our beautiful and incredible rock formations.
However, I do find myself mumbling a little anxiously when prolonged gales can quickly cause trouble for some of our trees, even more so when it often becomes potentially very dangerous for our human community – The issue comes from the fact that when the ground is soggy, our trees can be slightly more prone to succumb to the high winds. This is particularly the case if powerful gusts continue beyond a few hours at a time. Gusty winds tend to take limbs ‘by surprise’, or worse, they eventually batter a tree into a submissive groan and complete collapse. Although, saying that, I recently read that a falling tree doesn’t actually make much of a noise if there is nobody around to hear it!!!
My job as Commons Ranger is to do everything possible to nurture and protect our trees as best I can. I take this role very seriously and I work with absolute determination at all times to do whatever I can to improve the overall health of our precious green friends. This can be a very difficult and often complex challenge in some ways. For example, it sometimes means that difficult or unpopular decisions have to be made to remove trees. That said, the stark reality is that legally we have a duty of care to protect the public, which will always be the overriding critical objective for the Conservators. We will, however, always ensure that we have the best advice from multiple tree experts to ensure that we have explored all possible options and alternatives.
To that end, an important job of mine is to make sure that wherever possible, our soft human noggins are prioritised for protection from any lumps of falling tree. A seemingly ‘small limb’ all the way at the top of a tree turns into a pretty huge branch by the time it hits a footpath or a road! On that note, those of you who follow our Facebook page will see that I am often reminding the community that they should follow National Tree Safety Guidelines and NOT walk in woody areas during storms. I get very anxious when I see people in the woods during high winds and I would please urge everyone to avoid taking such easily avoidable risks.
Finally, on a happy note, I am delighted to say that we are now working on plans to ensure that we plant more replacement trees where it is appropriate to do so. Having to lose so many diseased ash over the past few years has been a very painful and sad experience but, we are now working to create a much more diverse canopy structure by paying close attention to the choices of species that we plant. We can now choose to have lots more variation in heights as well as other characteristics like types of flowers and/or fruit. This will in turn increase the numbers of birds and insect species that will be attracted to our oasis of Commons wildlife. Not forgetting, of course, that we now have some disease resistant elm trees to reintroduce to our Commons for the first time since the 1970s when we lost all of our mature elms to disease – Whoopee!
And as my last blog of the year, may I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and safe 2025.
