An afternoon in the woods

I popped up to the woods this afternoon with Nigel, a friend from church. We had the obligatory cup of tea and walk around to see what's going on first. Nigel suggested some native trees we might like to plant, such as crab apple (for the boar to eat) and cherry (blossom for insects and cherries for the birds) - he has a couple of acres just a few miles away, where he's spent a number of years planting up fields with interesting trees. We're hoping to plant some appropriate trees over the next couple of months, probably along the ride edges where they'll be guaranteed light in years to come.

Today's bird in the dead hedge at the junction clearing was a blackbird:
It's nice to see birds in it - we've put some wild bird food in it, but they haven't touched it yet...

We did some work too: splitting logs to go in the racks:
and coppicing the smaller stems along our main ride:
This leaves it clear for us to go in tomorrow with the chainsaws and quickly fell the larger stuff.

Mike