Clearing up from the weekend

We had a very busy weekend, with all kinds of visitors to the wood. Although I've done a few posts, there's still some odds and ends I'd like to mention. I'll start with yet another bluebells photo though, this time form the top end of our wood, where I'd not been since the bluebells came out:OK, on to other stuff. I already mentioned the SWOG butterfly ID day, but what I hadn't mentioned was that our friends Rich and Penny camped in the wood the night before, as they live a fair distance away. I was very impressed that they didn't use a normal tent, they used a mosquito net tent, and rigged a tarpaulin over that - and a good job too, as it rained! Rich proved to be a natural with the air rifle:
and Penny hit the target first time too, but I'm not allowed to post the photo of her as she's pulling a funny face! :-)

As you probably already know, Tracy found a WW2 bullet casing in the woods, but there was plenty of digging for other stuff with our friends Dave & Anna and Greg & Amy, who came for the day on Monday:Nothing yet in this hole - it's a strong signal, but must be deep, so it could be something big. Hope it's not a live WW2 bomb!

While we were walking round we saw this pheasant's egg, I assume a chick hatched from it:
and also saw another that someone had left on top of this stump. Looks like something attacked it, and it's not going to hatch now...
The pond is looking very green again
and I was pleased to see this hawthorn growing nicely. The spray of fresh shoots are coming out where I damaged a branch during felling in the winter. I'd cut the branch of cleanly after this, so I'm pleased to see that this has worked:
The same happened to a young oak last winter, and I was very annoyed, having missed it with at least ten trees and then hit it with the last one. Anyway, I'd pollarded it, hoping that it would regrow and that the shoots would be out of reach of the rabbits:
so I was delighted to see this on the side of it:
It's much slower growing than the chestnut or birch, but we're going to keep cutting them along the sides of the path every few years, so this oak should get enough light to keep growing. Who knows, as a pollard it may grow to be an interestingly shaped tree one day? I'll keep an eye on it.

Mike