An afternoon in the woods

For various reasons we've not made it to the woods for a couple of weeks, so it was great to get back up there yesterday afternoon, and also have some friends from church visit. We're looking at using the wood for a couple of different groups to visit for BBQ or camping - I just hope we get more weather like yesterday's!

The mixture of recent rain and strong sunshine has really made the plants shoot up, some of the coppice we cut last winter has grown a few feet already!

Also in that area there are Bluebell seeds now ready to grow - we might collect a few and scatter them more widely I think...

Further up the hill, where we cut the previous winter, the foxgloves are still putting on a good show:

Deeper inside the wood everything is very green, but there's more evening shade now:

This winter we think we might selectively cut some of the coppice stools along the rides, to create alternating ages and a permanent 'shrub layer' which should be beneficial for the wildlife.

Speaking of wildlife, we saw a few hornets near the camp today. Don't forget these aren't any more dangerous than a normal wasp, and are in fact less aggressive. I only managed to get a poor picture of one - wrong camera setting, so entirely my fault! Here it is though:

Remember that's a chestnut leaf it's on - the insect is over an inch long!

Anyway, now work has calmed down a bit we should be visiting the woods more often, so normal service shall be resumed on this blog!

Mike