Unlocking the full biodiversity value of canal towpaths in England and Wales

[Jerra]

Just now, tree monkey said:

Yup, interesting subject, I've done a small bit, it worked but it was rough

Like all other skills it requires a lot of practice.   I am sure yours was considerably better than the probably even tinier bit I have done.    To me it is a heritage thing, a skill and a look of the countryside we should not lose.    Interestingly there seems to be a resurgence of hedge planting around us.   A totally new hedge has been created across a field a couple of miles down the road.

 

Lots of whips appearing in places where there have only been pig netting fences for a number of years.

[TheBiscuits]

11 hours ago, BWM said:

Absolute madness, if the interest was genuinely aimed at improving the natural environment there is an equal mileage of offside vegetation which with proper management would offer excellent habitat. 

 

Most of the offside isn't CRT managed land.  

[Athy]

35 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Hedge laying involves partially cutting through the stems and laying down at a slight angle, very crudely described. 

It's a way of revitalising old hedges, it used to be common as a way of managing hedgerows

Now I have seen that done, including here in our village; it was the "cyclic" bit that I was wondering about. Is it like painting the Forth Bridge, start at one end, work your way along and then, when you've finished, start all over again?

[Jerra]

2 minutes ago, Athy said:

Now I have seen that done, including here in our village; it was the "cyclic" bit that I was wondering about. Is it like painting the Forth Bridge, start at one end, work your way along and then, when you've finished, start all over again?

Not as quickly as that.   Probably after ten or fifteen years up here in the frozen north.

[LadyG]

35 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Yup, interesting subject, I've done a small bit, it worked but it was rough

It is beautiful in it's own way

Strimming is not a particularly efficient way of managing a hay meadow, it needs the crop to be removed, strimming isn't the way to achieve that, in fact it tends to mulch and spread a certain amount of the grass

I know Hay meadows are cut with hay cutters powered by tractor pto. Once dried it will be baled and removed.

What I meant was that if the CRT want to leave the grass uncut forever, it will revert to scrub, and their mowing machines wont cope, strimming the long grasses is a quick fix, but mowing in spring and at the end of summer is probably required. The wind removes the cut grass, as happens today.

Edited March 27, 2021 by LadyG

[Jerra]

2 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I know Hay meadows are cut with hay cutters powered by tractor pto.

What I meant was that if the CRT want to leave the grass uncut forever, it will revert to scrub, and their mowing machines wont cope, strimming the long grasses is a quick fix, but mowing in spring and at the end of summer is probably required.

Where have you come across a suggestion that they would leave the grass uncut "for ever"?

[tree monkey]

38 minutes ago, LadyG said:

It's a step in the right direction, though I'm not convinced this is part of any long term plan, particularly as the present encumbants at CRT towers will have moved on, one way or the other within the next ten years.

I think my reference to hay meadows refers back to my earlier days including visiting family farms in the Dales, and crofting in the Western Isles: abandoned fields will revert to thick grasses and scrub, but taking an annual haycrop (strimming) , will result in good meadow type diversity.

 

Traditional hedges of my Scottish youth were hawthorn, planted by farmers as boundaries to keep stock contained, but gaps were later filled with wire fences, and by the 1970's hedge cutting was preferred to hedge laying. What @tree monkey thinks of as a well managed hedge, ie essentially stock proofing type , may not be what the conservationist seeks to promote and which can be found in a few areas, where the hedge is several metres wide at it's base  and interspersed with mature trees. A lot of these hundred year old field boundaries were ripped out in the mid sixties.

 

To return to the canal, towpaths, It is likely that a lot of the offside of the canal will currently be acting as wildlife corridors because they are not economically viable.  This will vary quite a lot and obviously urbanisation will disrupt these routes. Where I am currently the hedge is pure bramble, home to voles, mice, and rats! It has to be cut with a hedge trimmer to permit walking on the towpath. There are plenty of gaps which could be filled in with hedging plants, but unless I do it, or the local trust do it, it won't happen. 

Just a bit further up there are a few blackthorn type trees, home to blackbird, dunnock, blue tits, chaffinch.

What I think of hedge laying is a management technique to bring an overgrown and gappy hedge back and in fact revitalising it, so it can become the rich wildlife corridor a lot of people are after, it's part of a cycle of maintenance, unmanaged hedges eventually become badly flailed gappy messes.

It is a management method, hedges need maintenance 

[LadyG]

40 minutes ago, Athy said:

Now I have seen that done, including here in our village; it was the "cyclic" bit that I was wondering about. Is it like painting the Forth Bridge, start at one end, work your way along and then, when you've finished, start all over again?

That Forth Road (EDIT to Rail), Bridge Myth has been superseeded:  the old paint was removed, surface scrabbled and modern coatings applied, should last quite a few years.

Edited March 27, 2021 by LadyG

[Athy]

6 minutes ago, LadyG said:

That Forth Road Bridge Myth has been superseeded:  the old paint was removed, surface scrabbled and modern coatings applied, should last quite a few years.

I was thinking more of the railway bridge.

[GUMPY]

5 minutes ago, Athy said:

I was thinking more of the railway bridge.

That bridge was last painted in 2011, it's  due to be painted again in about 2036

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14789036

Edited March 27, 2021 by Loddon

[Athy]

Just now, Loddon said:

That bridge was last painted in 2011 due to be painted again in about about 2036

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14789036

Evidently Network Rail are unlocking its full biodiversity value.

[LadyG]

11 minutes ago, Athy said:

I was thinking more of the railway bridge.

Yes, so did I lol. 

 

[haggis]

BW Scotland (now Scottish Canals) had, or perhaps still have, a biodiversity expert who said that the bit of towpath between the edge of the canal and the walked on bit should NOT be cut, ever. The result was that you couldn't moor except on pontoons or the very few places a gap had been left as the growth on the bank was several feet high and extended into the water. Looked lovely but in an emergency, you had to hope you were near a bridge where you could stop in the bridge hole to get off. The expert just wouldn't listen when it was pointed out that the wild life had the whole of the non towpath side .

 

haggis

[GUMPY]

My view on towpath management is that visitor moorings and areas round bridges and locks should be cut on a regular basis, the general towpath should be treated as a wild flower meadow and cut once a year? With the exception of the fact that saplings should be removed as they can damage the banks. It would be good to get the hedges laid but that is down to the owners?

If enough people walk the towpaths then a path will remain through the grass, if not there is obviously no need of a path.

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Loddon

[BWM]

52 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Most of the offside isn't CRT managed land.  

I don't know about most but there is an awful lot that they do own, cuttings are one example that can provide excellent habitat but are generally left until the trees start falling over, whereas if regularly maintained the bankside is less likely to slip and due to the nature of the slope any wildlife is completely undisturbed. 

[LadyG]

1 minute ago, haggis said:

BW Scotland (now Scottish Canals) had, or perhaps still have, a biodiversity expert who said that the bit of towpath between the edge of the canal and the walked on bit should NOT be cut, ever. The result was that you couldn't moor except on pontoons or the very few places a gap had been left as the growth on the bank was several feet high and extended into the water. Looked lovely but in an emergency, you had to hope you were near a bridge where you could stop in the bridge hole to get off. The expert just wouldn't listen when it was pointed out that the wild life had the whole of the non towpath side .

 

haggis

I

The Chesterfield, has water weeds either side, fairly shallow, and not many mooring places, It's got SSI status, in places, and fishing is currently banned, let's go for more initiatives like that! 

 

[BWM]

16 minutes ago, haggis said:

BW Scotland (now Scottish Canals) had, or perhaps still have, a biodiversity expert who said that the bit of towpath between the edge of the canal and the walked on bit should NOT be cut, ever. The result was that you couldn't moor except on pontoons or the very few places a gap had been left as the growth on the bank was several feet high and extended into the water. Looked lovely but in an emergency, you had to hope you were near a bridge where you could stop in the bridge hole to get off. The expert just wouldn't listen when it was pointed out that the wild life had the whole of the non towpath side .

 

haggis

That demonstrates the difficulty of encouraging biodiversity onto the towpath, it is not comparable to meadows and the like, as when the growth is finally cut the wildlife resident in it has nowhere to retreat to. The comparison to roadside verges is also problematic as most of those won't have other users trampling through them, just traffic passing by.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, LadyG said:

It's a step in the right direction, though I'm not convinced this is part of any long term plan, particularly as the present encumbants at CRT towers will have moved on, one way or the other within the next ten years.

I think my reference to hay meadows refers back to my earlier days including visiting family farms in the Dales, and crofting in the Western Isles: abandoned fields will revert to thick grasses and scrub, but taking an annual haycrop (strimming) , will result in good meadow type diversity.

 

Traditional hedges of my Scottish youth were hawthorn, planted by farmers as boundaries to keep stock contained, but gaps were later filled with wire fences, and by the 1970's hedge cutting was preferred to hedge laying. What @tree monkey thinks of as a well managed hedge, ie essentially stock proofing type , may not be what the conservationist seeks to promote and which can be found in a few areas, where the hedge is several metres wide at it's base  and interspersed with mature trees. A lot of these hundred year old field boundaries were ripped out in the mid sixties.

 

To return to the canal, towpaths, It is likely that a lot of the offside of the canal will currently be acting as wildlife corridors because they are not economically viable.  This will vary quite a lot and obviously urbanisation will disrupt these routes. Where I am currently the hedge is pure bramble, home to voles, mice, and rats! It has to be cut with a hedge trimmer to permit walking on the towpath. There are plenty of gaps which could be filled in with hedging plants, but unless I do it, or the local trust do it, it won't happen. 

Just a bit further up there are a few blackthorn type trees, home to blackbird, dunnock, blue tits, chaffinch.

But hedges are a relatively new idea in nature anyway.

[tree monkey]

14 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

But hedges are a relatively new idea in nature anyway.

Being slightly picky but there's nothing natural about hedges 

[Jerra]

37 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

But hedges are a relatively new idea in nature anyway.

True however a hedge is basically just linear scrub and surely scrub is natural.   Willow carr as bog progress towards being dry land, scrub growing in areas where the canopy has been opened by wind blown trees or trees which have died.

[tree monkey]

8 minutes ago, Jerra said:

True however a hedge is basically just linear scrub and surely scrub is natural.   Willow carr as bog progress towards being dry land, scrub growing in areas where the canopy has been opened by wind blown trees or trees which have died.

Succession, which is where management comes into created habitats.

 

I'm familiar with an area of alder carr,  boy that's an odd place to walk around and potentially dangerous, this one has apparently swallowed a tractor

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

But hedges are a relatively new idea in nature anyway.

Of course, but they are a great resourse, ideal for birds, and also enhance our wellness by their beauty :), ever  changing with the seasons and the centuries. 

Edited March 27, 2021 by LadyG

[Jerra]

18 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Succession, which is where management comes into created habitats.

 

I'm familiar with an area of alder carr,  boy that's an odd place to walk around and potentially dangerous, this one has apparently swallowed a tractor

I worked an area of willow carr when doing things for the RSPB in Scotland as you say you need to watch your step.  Shorts were the order of the day but Scottish insects bite like crocodiles.

 

[ditchcrawler]

There are still the ruminants of BWs attempt with a mile of coir in wire hung along the towpath edge on the B&F to catch the odd boat prop

[Alan de Enfield]

18 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

There are still the ruminants of BWs attempt with a mile of coir in wire

 

Interesting choice of word, presumably the 'puter thinks it knows better than you.