Family visit

My parents are visiting us for a few nights, so we took them up to the wood today and put them to work! ;-)

When we arrived, the area near our camp was full of the sound of small birds enjoying the light and open space, fluttering between the oaks, the chestnut around the edges of the cant, and the wood piles in between. I got pictures of a new one today, the Long Tailed Tit. The second photo is the right way up - it's the bird that's upside down.
My Mum spent some time cleaning old bits of coppice stump with a wire brush, to take home and sell to people who do flower arranging, or just as natural objects to have around the house/garden. My Dad did some coppicing, clearing all the smaller stems in this area, and then Tracy did the larger ones with the chainsaw:
Here it is after a couple of hours work:
We're carrying on up to the pond, and then that'll be pretty much it for this year, apart from going back and doing the main ride in our own wood, to link the cant we cut last winter with the new clearing at the junction.

One other thing - at lunchtime I finished aligning the scope on my new air gun, and my Mum thought she'd like to have a shot:
I set up a tin can on a stick at a reasonable distance, and she hit it first time - well done!

Mike