Cockatiel news!

It's been a very busy summer, both in the woods and getting used to the new job. I'll post some pics from the woods soon, but there's some important sad and good news to post first.

Sadly our cockatiel Pete, who lived with us for 16 years, died a few weeks ago. We miss him lots, and have made a memorial video of him here:

We thought we'd try not having a pet for a while - we lasted just two weeks before deciding to look for some new birds... and today they arrived, so here's a short welcome to Floyd and Dusty!

They're brothers (the breeder assures they are males), with a mixed Pied and Pearl heritage. They're a bit tired in this video, having just put up with a long drive, but they settled in very quickly. We're looking forward to getting some proper time with them out of the cage tomorrow. We intend for them to be out of the cage all day eventually, but initially we'll only have them out while we're around, until we're sure we can trust them. Their parents sadly plucked their feathers out at 11 days old, so they've been hand reared since then, and it really does show in their behaviour - though in this video they're still a bit nervous as they only met us a few hours earlier. They don't have flight feathers yet, because of being plucked, but they should grow some during their next moult - and Dusty in fact has a few flight feathers already growing, and can manage a short hop through the air.

More videos to come soon...

Mike

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Spring arriving in the woods

This is always one of my favourite things to spot in Spring - the first Wood Anemone flower in our woods (taken on 19 March):

 

I've also got quite a few interesting videos of wildlife on the trail camera! But first, let's rewind a bit, because back in February there was Storm Eunice! The storm knocked over some coppice stools towards one edge of the woods, which we've cleared up to some extent but will go back to later - we're converting some to firewood, and others to dead wood to leave on the ground. There was some more immediate damage to sort out though, like this holly branch that was blocking the footpath:   

 

More of  a problem was this two-stemmed coppice stool that had also blown across the footpath. This was sad to see, as we'd saved this tree when coppicing here over a decade ago, to allow it to grow on to become larger. But, the intention was to fell it at some point for timber, it would never have stood for decades with two stems, so I guess the wind just did the job for us:

 

 

 

Tracy and I cleared a path right away, on the afternoon of the day the storm hit, when the wind had died back a bit:   

 

 

And then a few days later I carefully removed the stems, and the stool settled back into the ground:   

 

 

There's also been a flurry of firewood deliveries, so we've been collecting the last of the wood cut in winter 2018-19, which is very thoroughly seasoned now!    

 

Some was processed straight into the trailer for delivery:   

 

The rest was moved round to our main area for storing timber:   

 

 

I've also been experimenting with using my bike trailer to move timber through the woods, as a way of reducing the use of fossil fuels:   

 

Moving on to the wildlife, here's three recent videos from the trail camera, showing wild boar, bats (surprisingly!) and a lovely close up of a Roe buck (male deer):

 

 

   

As you could see in the final video above, there's a brilliant carpet of Wood Anemone right now: 

 

The trees are coming into leaf too - here's some Birch just opening up in mid-March, the Oak was a couple of weeks later, and Sweet Chestnut after that, over the Easter weekend:

 

Up in Sweep Wood, where we coppiced just over a year ago, the ground is now looking very green again:   

 

And by early April the Bluebells were showing. They're usually a bit later in our woods than some other places nearby, because of the local geography.   

 

There's been some warm, sunny days too, so quite a few butterflies out, like this Comma and Peacock:  

 

 

I was pleased to get a nice shot of this Buzzard overheard too!   

 

Winter did have a sting it its tail though, this photo was taken on 1 April!   

 

Back at home Pete has been enjoying this playground (some old cardboard packaging): 

 

We also brought him a 'tree' home from the woods. At first he needed to be tempted into it using millet:  

 

But now he flies straight into it and perches there!   

 

And finally, sunset on Camber beach in late January:

 

That's all for now. Mike

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Cockatiel videos

Tracy's been having great fun with hew new camera (a Canon SX220), here's some videos of our pet cockatiels up to their daily mischief...

She's looking forward to using it in the woods soon!

Mike

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Spring flowers in the wood

As far as I'm concerned, Spring is now here:

They're Wood Anemones, just starting to flower in Sweep Wood, in a patch where we coppiced the trees just over a year ago. Nearby were also some Primroses flowering:

There's garden escapees as well, like daffodils:

and this - not sure what it is?

The plum tree at the top of the hill is flowering too:

and there's some really impressive Lords and Ladies coming on:

In the area we coppiced this winter, there's a visible increase in the greening of the woodland floor just over the past two weeks. Here the older one, followed by one from this weekend:

Finally, back at home, our cockatiels have decided that to celebrate Spring they will desert their cage and live on a bookshelf from now on:

Mike

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A new improved firewood shelter (part 3)

OK, I know this is taking us for ever, but work has been very busy for the past couple of months! You can see the start of the firewood shelter in part 1 and part 2.

The latest job was to make some walls for it. The walls of a firewood shelter need to keep rain out, but let wind in, so that the wood in there can season. I sharpened some stakes:
then we drove them in along the edges and fitted sticks in between them:
This should let some air blow through while keeping out the rain. We're just doing two walls for now, the third wall (on the near end) will be put in once the store is mostly full - after that we'll get wood in and out through the opening on the left.

Our friend Paul and his daughter Emily came up to help, and Emily drove the land rover through the wood with a pile of logs in the back:
I cut up a few logs in a rack:
and everyone gave a hand loading them into the shelter:
We might build the walls right up to the top later, and we still need to do some more on the roof.

Elsewhere in the wood, it's turning into a bit of a jungle!
and Tracy got some nice pictures of spider webs:
And what were Pete and Tom doing while we were working hard in the wood? They decided that the cage wasn't good enough any more, and that the sofa was the best place for a nap:
Also, Tom (the one with the white face) has learned to turn on our portable radio - a few times now we've gone out and left it on the table, only to find it turned on when we get back! We've caught him in the act since, so we know it's him rather than Pete.

Mike

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