Mansfield & Ashfield Local Members' Group - Notts Wildlife Trust

Kodak (Annesley) Conservation Group Osier Bed

Osier bed with oak and wet woodland

Click here to find the reserve

The Kodak ( Annesley ) Conservation Group was founded by Dave Ratcliffe (now an early retiree of Kodak Limited) in 1989 at the height of a ‘green frenzy’. The idea being that we should do our bit to help nature and the environment. We also joined the BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) for their help and guidance.

We had talks with local organisations, but we really got going when Tony Newby of the local Nottingham branch of the BTCV gave a talk and told us that the Osier Bed area on the site of Kodak Limited had been surveyed a few years previously for the local council. (Site of Importance for Nature Conservation). Tony suggested that maybe we would like to manage this area as it has been neglected for a few decades. Having spoken with Kodak Limited for their help and support they were more than happy to support the project. This was the start of the Osier Bed project, which 15 plus years later is still ongoing but with less frenzied activity than in the earlier days.

In the beginning some ten or twelve unpaid volunteers, generally all Kodak employees would meet every two weeks on Sunday mornings for three to four hours at a time. Now we try to come down most Sundays. One of the first tasks being to create an access point into the Osier bed. This at first was by means of a timber bridge we constructed, from the car park over a deep wide drainage ditch. In later years the bridge became surplus to requirements, so we dismantled it and used the timber elsewhere, access now being by a path close to the road.

The early years were hard work, as the Osier Bed

being nearly impregnable, with many mature crack willow having fallen and grown again intertwining with each other. But with trained chainsaw operators and other volunteers trained by the BTCV in the safe use of hand tools and felling techniques, the area gradually became cleared. Some of the felled timber was sold off for fire wood to generate a small income, the rest stacked into log piles.

Other types of willow were introduced, particularly almond being the most planted out. Once we had grown a certain amount of willow ourselves, it then became easier for us to propagate more willow by cuttings.

The areas surrounding the willows were also embarked upon and other species of native trees introduced, e.g. alder, elder, dogwood, hazel, holly, oaks, silver birch, spindle and whitebeam, to increase the flora and fauna of the area.

A few years into the project and our first pond is dug out by BTCV volunteers. Since then streams and more ponds have been dug by ourselves to diversify the wildlife in the area. These are now maturing into excellent habitats for the mammals and insects that thrive around water and not forgetting wild flowers that are colonising the waters edge. Although, if it is a dry spring and summer the water table drops and the ponds and streams dry out. This year we have been lucky!.

As the willow beds extended, rides were formed around the area to assist in getting around and by walking these, ideas are formed for future project work.

Advice in the early days is to stack the felled ‘waste’ timber into log piles and now these have matured into homes for mice, shrew, frogs and assorted invertebrate. The piles themselves becoming covered in mosses and lichens.

Our tasks nowadays is to keep the area safe and to improve on any projects we have undertaken in the past, to cut the grass of the rides and to improve them especially where a water course may flow over them. Some of the willow is coppiced each year by a group from Sheffield who specialise in willow products e.g. river bank erosion and wicker work, this relieves us of a job and what to do with it.

A sector of the Osier Bed has been set aside which we are slowly trying to ‘convert’ into a wild flower meadow, this will take some time as the ground is so rich in nutrients. But up to now the insects and butterflies are loving it.

To the top end of the Osier Bed on higher ground is a stand of mature oaks which are generally too big for us to work with. Surrounding these oaks are thousands of bluebells which do look splendid in the spring time when in flower. We also have two small stands of maturing hazel which we introduced a few years ago. Two seasons past one of these stands produced a crop of nuts, but we think the squirrels had them away before we had chance too.

Now we have sighted shrews, weasels and water voles, which last year had a family of four in tow, many bird species including blackcap, chiffchaff, nuthatch, siskin, treecreeper and willow tit, plus a lot of the more common birds. This year we were fortunate to witness a pair of willow tits in the process of building their nest in a rotting hollow tree stump and then later feeding their chicks with juicy green caterpillars and this is within ten feet of where we sit! Also last year, a pair of sparrow hawks decided to have a noisy courtship and mate and take refuge with us. There are also many species of butterflies, moths, damselflies and dragonflies and the insect species are numerous.

Over the years we have made many nesting boxes for parrots! these were made from the larger fallen trees and donated to Carol and Dave who ran a private parrot care home on the outskirts of Rainworth. They also had a lot of the branches as apparently the parrots loved to rip them to pieces for nesting material. Another donation we made was to the Kings Mill Hospital, they had an area of ground which they had the idea to turn into a nature reserve for visitors and patients to walk around, so Chas Hickling came along to see us and we sent him away a happy man with half his van filled with different kinds of willow cuttings.

Many mistakes have been made and many a lesson learnt during our projects, but we have been praised for our efforts in the way we have approached particular jobs, by various representatives from Nottingham Wildlife Trust, Nottingham Council parks department and Wollaton Hall who have visited us over the years and shown great interest and encouragement towards us.

It is nice now and so easy to sit in there and savour the results of our efforts, when really we ought to be doing a bit more work!

Rob Riley.

Robert.j.riley@kodak.com

September 2004

The Osier Bed itself is private property owned by Kodak Limited and is not generally open to the public, it is also designated as an S.I.N.C.

Mansfield & Ashfield Local Members Group

Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust

Kodak (Annesley) Conservation Group Osier Bed

Osier bed with oak and wet woodland

Click here to find the reserve