Blog Posts

Well, it has officially been a dry January….. not just for those carrying out New Year resolutions, but also in terms of rainfall ?️

We’ve been examining the historic rainfall records held by the Met Office for the monitoring station at Manston, and it has certainly been an unusual month – a mere 15.6mm (0.6″) of rain, compared to last January when we had 90.5mm (3.6″). In fact this was the driest January for 22 years!

So what does this mean for the woods? We are sometimes asked where our water supply is, and we point at the clouds…. so a lack of rain can be an issue for our young trees.

However we counter this by planting saplings (generally no taller than 1.5m), which need less water to establish. Thanks to our homemade mulch mats and woodchip, precious moisture is retained; and by removing competing vegetation around the planting area, our young trees can maximise the benefits of all available rainfall and sunlight ?

These methods appear to be working in terms of the survival rates, but that won’t stop us doing a rain dance!

Today marks a significant milestone for Dane Valley Woods. For the last six months we have been working hard on developing a Land Management Plan in conjunction with White Horse Ecology, and we are excited to reveal that it is now complete and ready to be shared with the community. So, what is a Land Management Plan? Well, it serves a number of purposes:-

• to guide our work over the next few years
• to summarise our progress to date
• to describe habitats and the wildlife found within
• to set out our ethos, what we want to achieve and why
• to supply land management information to the landowner (TDC)
• to support future funding applications
• to summarise all the above in an easy to read format

The plan is not intended to be static, and the success or otherwise of the various objectives will be reviewed, as we adjust to community feedback and the ever changing site conditions. The main headlines are as follows:-

✅ smaller scale tree planting, with a greater emphasis on tree maintenance
✅ glades and open areas for people and wildlife
✅ habitat interventions such as reptile refuges, dry hedges and bird boxes
✅ control of invasive species
✅ extending the path network in the woods
✅ public engagement events and site interpretation
✅ investigating an upgrade in designation to a Local Wildlife Site

Click on the links below to read the full Land Management Plan and the associated Work Plan.

On a fine January morning last Sunday, the newest trees were introduced to the Woods, when our volunteers planted a wide variety of 65 native trees. A huge thank you to our sponsors Curve Roasters for raising and donating the money through product sales to buy the fledgling trees, as well as keeping our volunteers going with their delicious coffee!

We will be returning each month to help these new trees to grow, and willing volunteers are always welcomed to come along and help – find out more here on our volunteer page.

After doing a voluntary litter pick last month at the woodlands, 1^st Margate Cubs were thanked by Secretary Kashmir Flint, who also did a talk about waste, its problems and how we can all help to reduce it. Every year, England and Wales produce enough waste to cover Hyde Park in 80 foot of rubbish, which is around the equivalent of 4 double storey houses! A lot of this waste ends up in natural areas or in the sea where it harms wildlife, with the RSPCA receiving over 7,000 calls over litter-related incidents every year.

But as Kashmir explained to the attentive Cubs, waste is a problem that we have created, therefore it is a problem that we can solve! Using the waste hierarchy, we can reduce, reuse and recycle, often in fun and creative ways.

Waste is an issue closely tied with Dane Valley Woods, from both its past and present. Dane Valley Woods was an old landfill site, as a result, we often find odd items when digging around! Whilst this is great because it is now covered in emerging woodlands, we care about the environment and do not want to see all our natural spaces being covered in landfill sites. Waste is also a present problem for us, as the site is a main route through Dane Valley, therefore we are constantly battling with litter. We spend many task days litter-picking, which consumes voluntary time and effort.

The Cubs kindly helped us by using their time to litter-pick at the woodlands and giving us a kind donation, to which we are incredibly grateful.

Our secretary and media manager, Kashmir Flint, has been talking about her role and the benefits of volunteering…..

“Being a full-time student isn’t always easy and after all the essays and exams, we need experience to get onto the job ladder. To gain this experience, you get a job and to gain a job you usually need experience. It’s a vicious cycle and no wonder that many students end up frustrated.

But as I have found out, volunteer work can often provide invaluable experience that will hopefully land me in a dream working placement. I’m entering my third year of a Wildlife Conservation degree at the University of Kent, and hope to be employed as an ecologist after graduation. This job market is competitive and skills are often essential. This is how Dane Valley Woods is helping me out.

The project is found in the heart of Margate and was established in 2002, on land formally used as a rubbish tip. The council owned land is managed by the Dane Valley Woods volunteers, who have heroically braved the winter planting season each year since its establishment to plant over 4,000 trees on the site. They meet on the last Sunday of each month to help maintain the site through various tasks such as bramble clearance and mulching around trees to help prevent weed growth. Since joining the group in June 2011, I’ve been fascinated at the wide range of wildlife found at the site, and have recently started to add to the list of species recorded in order to give an almost complete audit of biodiversity.

I’m hoping that both my practical experiences in maintaining the woodlands and species identification as well as managerial skills gained through my role as secretary will help me to stand out against a crowd of graduates, all applying for the same vacancies. But the woodland doesn’t just help me. Dane Valley Woods is a community wild space and is open for everybody to enjoy and use. The volunteers established a memorial garden in 2013 for the public to plant trees for loved ones. Wildflowers have been planted at the site for aesthetics as well as for the insects and tasks such as Easter egg hunts and summer fetes have been held to engage the public.

However, Dane Valley Woods is in urgent need of volunteers to help the upkeep of the site. Task days are held on the last Sunday of each month from 10am until 2pm, meeting outside the Dane Valley Woods HQ, at the Dane Valley allotment site and volunteers are given free tea and coffee after their hard work. The group have a website address which can be found at www.danevalleywoods.org and we can also be found on Facebook or Twitter, where you can see many of the photos that I have snapped myself at the site.”

On a bright and sunny Saturday 29 September 2012, Dane Valley Woods volunteers teamed up with Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) in an exciting new partnership, to try and identify the extent of biodiversity on the site. A base of operations was set up nearby on the green under DVW’s newly purchased giant gazebo, with a whole range of analysis tools including laptops, microscopes and reference books.  Three groups, each lead by experts in their field, were then sent into the woods to see what they could find…..

The exciting news is that all the results have been analysed by the university’s team (pictured on the day below, with DVW volunteers), and have now been published on our website in the ‘Wildlife’ section, here.

A big thank you to everyone who took part and helped organise, particularly Deborah, Hannah & Judy of CCCU – we particularly enjoyed the fish n chips! The university has also written about this event on their excellent Grapevine+ blog , you can read more here.

After last year’s dry spring that caused much consternation for us tree planters as well as the loss of a good number of the trees that we planted we have been blessed by rain at the right time of the year for the 1000 or so trees that were planted this winter.  The trees are all looking healthy and their leaves are just beginning to burst.  Hopefully this year will see virtually no fatalities.  In order to help make sure this doesn’t happen, volunteers mulched many of these trees this morning with bark chippings very kindly provided by Thanet District Council.  Adding mulch around the trees will help make sure that weeds don’t grow up around the trees competing for moisture and nutrients as well as adding organic material slowly to the soil.  Here at Dane Valley Woods we would like to thank all of those who turned up and would like to apologise for all of the rain.  Unfortunately, the three hour window of sunshine that we had ordered didn’t turn up.  Thankfully, the trees didn’t seem to mind.

A fantatsic effort by hardy volunteers at Dane Valley Woods planted around 400 trees on Saturday morning.  The site now boasts an impressive array of spindle, willow, hazel, dogwood, box, wild service tree and field maple whips that will form part of a community woodland in the heart of Margate.  Why not come and join us next Sunday (26th February) where we will do the same thing all over again.

This Sunday sees the first of this winter’s tree planting mornings at Dane Valley Woods.  Timed to coincide with National Tree Week Dane Valley Woods will be planting native trees in Margate’s own community woodland.

Tree Planting

Native tree species are those that were found in the United Kingdom before humans started moving plants and animals around.  We favour the planting of these trees as they have been a part of our environment for longer than other trees and generally more insects and other animals live on, in and around them.

Why not come and join us in the woods on Sunday 27th November or Sunday 11th December between 10am and 1pm.  This map will show you where the woodland is.

Willow used in Fedge

Not an everyday term is your actual fedge.  However, the idea is beautifully simple and with the help of AJS Crafts Dane Valley Woods have created one in their allotment HQ.  A fedge is an alternative to a hedge or fence but combines the properties of both to create a living willow border.  One year old willow stems are cut and then placed into the ground in the line of a hedge in a lattice formation.  These stems are then woven and tied into place.  These stems will then grow into living willow stems and create a semi permanent border as well as a beautiful structure.  Thanks to all of the people who helped out on the day as well as for the lovely food.

Liz, Kashmir & Fedge

We managed to avoid the showers to day and had a great time properly installing the pond, recreating the glade in the woods and creating a new sign to hang from the container at the HQ.  The pond is now installed and awaiting rainwater and we had a lot of help preparing a new sign for the container made out of objects found in the woodland.

Common Pipistrelle in flight

A “Bats & Moths” event was held last night, organised by the Windmill Community Allotment Project in conjunction with the Kent Bat Group. The assembled bat-hunters headed off into Dane Valley Woods at dusk, armed with special detectors that convert the bat’s high pitched calls to a noise that us humans can hear. We waited in the closing darkness on the cycle path leading through the middle of the woods, and then we heard them – a very quick pass as they are swift creatures in flight! Shirley, our bat expert, confirmed that due to the frequency at 45 kHz, we were hearing a Common Pipistrelle – using its call in the same way as sonar, to echo-locate insects to eat. To receive confirmation that there are these interesting creatures in the woods is very exciting, and can be added to the increasing list of flora and fauna that can be found within its boundaries. If you would like to become involved in helping to identify the biodiversity of the site, get in touch through our contact page – we’d love to hear from you!

Dane Valley Woods have a new events programme so that you will know exactly when we are up and active as well as what we are up to.  There are some great events coming up includeing joint events with our neighbours the Windmill Community Allotment Project and with the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society as well as the usual tree planting and woodland management.  You can download a copy of the Events Programme by clicking here.  Don’t forget that there are also more details on the Events Page.

Dane Valley Woods are in the final stages of arranging a partnership with the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society to investigate the original route of St Peter’s Footpath.  Geophysical surveys will eventually be carried out to find out if the footpath used to run through Dane Valley Woods, and we will then be digging some test pits to see if this is the case and if there are any other archaeological finds that might indicate the nature of activities that used to go on in Dane Valley Woods.  The first event will be on Saturday August 13th but check out the events page for more details.

With the trees happily growing in the wood last Sunday saw us crack on with revamping the Dane Valley Woods headquarters. This included painting the tool store and the newly installed outdoor classroom as well as starting to dig a pond. The pond will come as a welcome addition to the HQ and hopefully we will be able to add pond dipping to the range of things that people can do at Dane Valley Woods.  Having said that, the hot weather and hitting chalk did make this a tough job.  The tool store and the outdoor classroom is now looking fantastic and we are having a big event next month with the Windmill Community Allotment Project.  Look out for more details in the events section.

Whilst the dry, hot weather may be great for early season barbeques and working up a tan before you go on holidayit is not such good news for wildlife and especially bad news for newly planted trees.  Newly planted trees are particularly vulnerable to drout as their roots have not had time to fully establish and be able to seek out water from deep in the ground.  As we planted over 1000 tree last winter and there is no way to water all the trees we are deperate for rain as some of the trees are looking quite sickly already.  So next time it rains, don’t moan about the British weather and think about how the Dane Valley Woods trees will be breathing a huge sigh of relief.