The Story So Far...
In September 2015, the City and County of Swansea - or CCS - won the tender to help renovate the site at Llys Nini, carrying out the works involved from the Lottery Grant. In addition to the environmental work, they have also helped us to come up with a plan for the site as a whole, to improve access, educational opportunities, and develop links with the community.
On this page is the timeline of what we've achieved so far in 2017 to make this happen.
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January, 2017
January was mostly focused around one major project - the Willow Maze. Given the scale of the project, we ran the bulk of it over three days - one day to cut and harvest the willow with volunteers and lay the membrane, one day to begin the work with some children from Penllergaer Primary, and one open community day to continue the planting.
"Some" children, however, rapidly turned into half the school! So Tim came from CCS to help us run some educational sessions on habitat types as well. By the end of the three days, the centre of the maze was complete- but, the rest will be slightly ongoing into February.
Meanwhile, Adam Grogan, the head of wildlife for the RSPCA, came to visit the site and see the improvements we've made. He made very encouraging noises and even offered to come and help out with some mouse boxes. Cheers, Adam!
And finally, plans for the grazing regime moved forward another step as fencing plans were laid out. The projected timeline is that the fences - and the cattle - will be in by spring.
It's a Frog's Life
March, 2017
Spring has sprung! March was ushered in with our annual Dragon Hunt to mark St David's Day, and then followed up with not one, not two, but three school visits! Oystermouth Primary School, Ysgol Gynradd Pontybrenin and Tre Uchaf Primary all dropped in for an educational walk through the woods to look at habitats, with Pontybrenin's visit being conducted in Welsh, and Tre Uchaf bringing their special unit. This allowed the accessible boardwalk in the ancient wood to get its first outing for its intended use - as an educational tool for people with additional needs. It performed admirably!
To close off last year's incredible PhotoDiary project with ASDES, we held an exhibition of all the participants' work from across the year, and then hung up the best photos in Reception. The photos will stay there until April, when they'll be moved for exhibition to Swansea University as part of their Festival of Autism.
And finally, Llys Nini played host to The Big Plant 2017, an event that saw UWTSD's Environment Society come and plant 410 trees in a strip in the horse field to link the Tranch to the ancient wood. It was a wonderful day with a turn-out of over 35 people, and they've promised to come back next year. Good news all round!
Guide Frogs
May, 2017
May opened with our annual Mayday Trail, celebrating the start of May and the start of Spring! After that we held a survey of our dormouse boxes, kindly aided by a volunteer group from HSBC. No dormice still (though we're ever hopeful...), but we found lots of blue and great tits, a woodmouse nest, and even two nests of bumblebees... We also did two more site surveys during the month for flowering plants with a volunteer group, so overall our species list is looking much healthier!
And over on the social side of things, we made some exciting new connections with the community: we are in talks with the Students' Union of the University of Wales, Trinity St David about turning Llys Nini into a volunteering hub for their students, thanks to the success of the Big Plant in March; and, Swansea Play Scheme came to have a look at the site with a view to using it during the summer holidays for parents and kids.
July, 2017
July saw the start of the summer holidays for the kids, so we installed the first of our two planned summer trails, due to run until early August. It is a Tree ID Trail, and will hopefully help some people learn five of our common native trees.
We had a visit from students studying for their Welsh Baccalaureate at Birchgrove Comprehensive School, who helped us lay down woodchip in the maze (after we checked for any more shrews, of course!), and then a visit from Aberdare School to learn about the woods. There was also more surveying, of course!
And finally, we received the wonderful news that we had won not just one, but two awards! The Green Flag Community Award went to Llys Nini for making the site an available and functioning resource to the local community, while our Chair of Trustees, Sally Hyman, won the Green Flag Volunteer of the Year (Wales) Award. Well done, Sally!
Of Coffee and Sheep
A-Maze-Ing
February, 2017
February began with the completion of the willow maze, which is now all planted and waiting for a final layer of woodchip for the floor to become usable. The willow is already producing leaves, so hopefully the maze will root and produce us a wonderful living wall!
Before the frogs and newts can fully take over, we pulled in some volunteers to help clear out the final two ponds that haven't yet had the TLC they need. Unfortunately, one proved that it will need machinery rather than hand tools; but the other is now looking clear and wonderful. And shortly afterwards, the frogs have moved back onto site! Almost every pond bar two is now boasting frogspawn, a huge improvement on last year when only two did. All we need now is for the frogs to find the new otter ponds...
Meanwhile, the first trail of the year launched to huge success over February's half term - our Interactive Story Trail, following the tale of Cedwyn the Giant who has cursed the Castell Einon playground.
And finally, the final draft of the site Management Plan is now underway, and projected to be completed in the next few months...
April, 2017
April has been beautiful, with the bluebells blooming in the woods and the site waking up after winter. The frogspawn has all become tadpoles now, although with one slight mishap - the spawn that was laid in the otter pond was positioned next to the spillway, and when the tadpoles hatched, they all decided to swim into the field! Luckily, Elanor and a trusty volunteer managed to scoop them all back up and re-release them - into the far end of the pond this time!
The main event of the month has been the Alice in Wonderland Easter trail, which ran for the fortnight of the Easter holidays (including our Easter Saturday fun day) and saw a vast increase in visitor numbers - almost 800 across the two weeks! This is wonderful news, of course, but it has also highlighted a need for us to rethink our procedures in the event of such large numbers, should this (hopefully) become a regular event.
Progress was made on the sand martin nest box - one box is now made, with the supporting struts installed lakeside. We even climbed on the struts to make sure they were weight-bearing! All in the name of health and safety, of course... Similarly, the base of the reptile boardwalk is now laid, and awaiting slats.
And finally, a group from HSBC kindly volunteered their time to help us sow some wildflower beds around the animal centre compound, as part of the nationwide Grow Wild campaign.
Building Projects
June, 2017
June started with our Teddy Bear's Picnic trail. Technically the trail began in May, but it ran over the half term week which straddled the months. Last year's trail was a wash out thanks to three weeks of nigh-solid rain, but we had better luck this year, with half the week giving us some good weather! Those who braved the rain enjoyed.
On the 11th we held our first ever BioBlitz! Although the weather was horrendous we still had over 30 visitors, and the site was thoroughly scoured for birds, bugs, hoverflies, trees, and aquatic invertebrates, giving us an even more complete species list!
On the 21st a volunteer group from Admiral came and helped cut down some more of our endless supply of willow. Unfortunately, they couldn't put out the woodchip in the maze as had been our first plan - as we went to start, we discovered a nest of shrews had taken up residence inside the woodchip! We'll try again next month.
And finally, work on the reptile boardwalk began apace - complete with some young common lizards coming to inspect our work! It seems to be up to scratch so far...
August, 2017
As the Tree ID trail concluded, we had a week off before the next went up - our Detective Story Trail! Participants had to work out who stole Mole's special glasses by interviewing the five suspects, and noting down clues in their notebooks. We also had a volunteering visit by a group from Hugh James Solicitors, who helped to clear out the weeds in the dog run and kennels, meaning no need for us to add glyphosate!
The Saint Samlets Nuture Group dropped in for a visit, just in time to trial our newest acquisition - our recycled Coffee Pod, formerly a sauna and now serving teas, coffees and hot chocolates to the visitors using our playground! Caffi Nini has been a roaring success.
And finally, we discovered that our shiny new fences, although cattle proof, are apparently not entirely sheep-proof at the end of the site! After an entertaining few hours of herding in the woods, Elanor managed to return the sheep to the farm next door. Meanwhile, one of our ash trees dropped an extremely large limb onto a path after high winds; a full tree survey is now planned for September.
September, 2017
What a busy month September proved to be! First, the Prince's Trust came to help us weed the tarmac dog run and clear the leaf fall off our accessible boardwalk, in order to keep it accessible. Next, Admiral came to help us bag up the wood generated from our coppicing activities, which allowed us to sell the wood as part of our Buy a Log, Save a Dog campaign (and gave wood burners across Swansea a source of local, sustainable wood for the winter.)
Midway through the month, we had a lovely visit from a group of Qatari students as part of their social enterprise scheme for creating sustainable business plans. This was followed by a group of volunteers from Virgin, who helped with more leaf clearing (autumn hit our paths hard!) We also had a visit from Penllergaer Cubs, and we ourselves travelled to University of Wales, Trinity St David's Freshers' Fayre to recruit more environmental volunteers, and foster links with the university.
And finally, the second sand martin bank was mostly installed in Waun Adurwen. It is now just waiting on the back piece being installed, and the sand going in. While we had the digger, we also cleared out a deeper drainage channel from the otter lake, as the water levels were getting a bit enthusiastic at maximum and flowing back into the holts.
December, 2017
2017 wound up with the Christmas season! We accompanied our Christmas Fayre with a Christmas woodland trail, challenging visitors to find the five elf houses there and see what toy each was making. It proved so successful that we extended it across the whole month!
October, 2017
After the business of September, October was quieter, relatively speaking - except, of course, for the Hallowe'en Trail. After last year's success with the night time walk, we did four night time events this year, plus leaving the trail itself in place for a full week, PLUS our pumpkin carving and face painting day... Maybe not so much quieter!
Many thanks to the volunteers from HSBC, who came and helped us set up the trail.
November, 2017
The first task of November was to get the Hallowe'en trail back down again, and fortunately, there was a helpful team of volunteers from HSBC to help us do just that. But of course, the next step was Christmas! A mere two weeks later we were back out again, getting ready for our Elf House Christmas Trail, which will run from the end of November to the end of December. Happily, we had plenty of help to decorate the woods - Virgin Media volunteers helped to cut some willow to make the house frames, and two sets of learners from Coleg Sir Gâr slathered on the tinsel and baubles.
On the environmental side of things, two leaps forward were made - the first was the completion of a new boardwalk in Waun Adurwen, to allow visitors to get to the eventual hide without drowning in mud part way. But the second was the return on The Big Plant, our tree planting initiative with UWTSD! 420 trees of native providence were planted into the Horse Field to link up the ancient wood in the Hengoed and the newer stand in the Tranch. This will hopefully create a wildlife corridor between the two, and mitigate fragmentation.