Saturday 23 April 2016

The woodland turns white and blue...

The woods are now at an especially beautiful stage, where for a week or two there are both Wood Anemone and Bluebells out:

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The whole woodland floor has really greened up:
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The trees are catching up now as well. Birch are always pretty early coming into leaf:
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As is Hawthorn:
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But the Oak is now catching up too:
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And even the Sweet Chestnut has some leaves appearing:
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It won't be long before you can't see very far through the woods, as the leaves fill in the gaps and create shade.

Meanwhile, our tame pheasants are still busy gobbling up any spilled seed from the bird feeder. Here's the male one keeping a watchful eye over his two females!
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Mike

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Sunday 10 April 2016

Springtime in the woods and a happy pheasant

The woods are finally waking up to Spring! The Wood Anemones have got going, despite my worries they were developing slowly compared to the Bluebells:

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But the Bluebells are on their way out too:
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As is the Broom in the wayleave
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And a wild Daffodil in Sweep Wood:
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The trees are getting going too, the Willow in the wayleave is in flower, with lots of catkins on display:
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The Birch trees are quite well into leaf now:
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And the Hornbeam is getting started:
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Here's the area we coppiced over the winter, which is now looking very green!
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The wildlife is busy too, lots of Bumble Bees around:
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And at least one of our tame pheasants is still around - they always make this noise when they eat the seed we've left for them:


Looking forward to some more sunny days in the woods soon!

Mike

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