Spring is here!

We went up to the wood on Sunday afternoon, and finished coppicing one stool we'd left part-done by the pond. While we were there, we saw a sign of spring coming - catkins on this Hazel tree:
There's a good bit of sky above the pond now, it'll be interesting to see how it does in the summer, though we need to dig it out a bit more.
The little animals, possibly squirrels, are still gnawing at the holly:
This has been done to all of the young holly trees along the path between Sweep Wood and Grist Wood. I'm really beginning to dislike squirrels....

And rabbits too for that matter, as they did this to a chestnut stool:
Fortunately this is near the pond, where we want to keep a clearing anyway. In the main part of the wood very few chestnut stools have been attacked.

Last week, while I was away, Tracy had been up and found the squirrels had gnawed through the rope to get the bird feeder down. Until we manage to reduce their population and increase our supply of meat I've gone a step further to keep the bird feeder up:I know they can climb the chain, but as long as it stays up in the air they can only get at limited amounts of the food - it's when they get it down on the ground and roll it around that all the seed comes out. We'll visit again in a few days and see what's happened...

The final thing we had to do as we left was help one of our woodland neighbours who'd skidded off the track on the wayleave. It was good that we had the winch and rope handy, and nice to be able to help out.

Mike