Naughty little Robin!

We had an afternoon in the wood today, as it was nice and sunny and the morning rain had cleared. Robin was back again, but as we'd already had lunch we didn't have any food for him...
But he didn't believe us, so he thought he'd go and check inside the car while we were unloading stuff. We didn't see him in there, but he left some unmistakable evidence:
Fortunately we're well used to that kind of thing happening, as we have these two little rascals at home:Although we've been burning quite a bit of brash during the coppicing this year, we've also left some piles of it around for the wildlife where we can, and today we saw one of them in use. After eating an apple we leave the core in the wood - it's usually gone by the next day, and if not, well it will rot and maybe the seeds will grow. Today, an apple core lasted about 5 minutes:
The mouse dragged it back into one of the brash piles to eat in secret - I guess it was a pretty filling meal for it!

Anyway, we carried on with the usual work, Tracy further down the hill with some chestnut:
and me fighting my way through a patch of Holly, coppicing the Hazel and Sycamore that's growing amongst it:
The fun and games didn't end there though - on refuelling the saws we discovered that Tracy's had a small fuel leak when it was on its side, so when we got home it was my job to take it apart and fix it. I'm really glad I got copies of the workshop manuals for our saws a few months ago!
The little white fuel filter on the end of the black pipe was the problem, as it wasn't fitting tightly into its socket. I think I have it sorted now, but we'll have to check it tomorrow when we use it...

I'm also hoping the wind will be reduced tomorrow - I didn't get to try out my new pulley today as it was a bit too windy to fell larger trees.

Mike

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Black headed gulls at Camber

We went for a short walk on the beach this morning, and there were lots of black headed gulls flying around, looking for food in the breaking waves, so I got some nice pics. You'll notice that although these are black headed gulls, their heads aren't very black! They only have black heads in the summer, in the winter there's only a hint of their summer colouring.
Here's a nice sequence, though the bird didn't get the fish this time, despite two attempts:
This time though, a small fish is caught:
They weren't the only ones out making the most of the waves, we saw these windsurfers too:
That's all for now, we might go to the wood tomorrow - I've got a new double pulley to test out with the ropes!

Mike

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More birds and some interesting Sycamore

The rest of this week was just more coppicing, straightforward stuff with no need for ropes. Robin was with us again, though this time he thought he'd explore the land rover and the tool belt:
and of course, come to eat the crumbs we "accidentally" dropped...
Once again, he wasn't the only bird around - a Pheasant exploded out of a tree, along with a pigeon, and then set to prowling around the area we've been working:
One of the Sycamore we coppiced had a really interesting pattern inside it, so I cut several slices off and we'll see if we can do something with them. I'm assuming it's a fungal growth of some kind:
That tree came out of the area I'm working in that's dense with Holly - I've not included another picture, as you can't see any progress, despite a number of trees coming out already!

Tracy, on the other hand, has created a nice space to fell into further down the hill:
The trees at the top of the hill had been felled up the hill, then stacked near the top. But now we're moving down the hill, there's no question of moving the logs that far up the hill, so it's easier to fell them down it now.

One last little oddity - the tree near the top that looks like a kind of plum has blossomed - but only on one branch! This happens to be the branch that was nearest to a fire we had there a couple of months ago - we're wondering if the heat tricked it into flowering?
Mike

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Robin comes to visit

Yesterday we started work by collecting a trailer-load of firewood to deliver at the end of the day. With that and sharpening my chainsaw before we set off, it was late morning by the time we got to the work site. When we arrived we had a visitor, who stayed around for the whole day:
I took a lot of photos of him, as he's very tame. I've whittled the selection down, but there's still quite a few, so just scroll past them if you're not interested...
Lunchtime (with some crumbs from our sandwiches):
Scratching an itch:
Looking for food:
He wasn't the only bird to come and see us; after weeks of circling around the area we've coppiced, a blackbird has finally decided that it's a safe and interesting place to visit:
Anyway, we did some work as well as taking photos and feeding the birds... Tracy got busy carrying on where Saturday's volunteers left off, coppicing some Hazel:
Meanwhile I split logs and made stakes:
then went to work on a patch we've left until now:
We want to leave most of the Holly there, but coppice the Hornbeam and Sycamore that's growing up among it. I made a start on it as the afternoon drew to a close, felling some hornbeam:
I carried on with this work today, while Tracy was working further down the hill, where she's started in a new area, creating a space to fell chestnut down the hill, now that we're a fair distance from the top. More on that later...

Mike

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Butterfly Conservation volunteer day

We've been on Butterfly Conservation volunteer days before, but this time it was at our wood! (well, my parents' wood, but it's where we're working right now) BC are involved with this bit of the wood as it's in a priority area for coppicing and other work to help butterflies and other wildlife.
We had six people come along, in addition to Steve, the organiser at BC. They did some exceptional work while they were in the wood, coppicing at least 10 Hazel stools and felling a number of small sycamore, and all just using bow saws and loppers!
Towards the end I roped up a few chestnut stems so they could see some other stuff going on, and we had a good chat about some of the different techniques and the uses for the wood.
Lunch was included too, courtesy of Steve, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. So, a big THANK YOU to everyone who came and helped out for the day! :-)

Mike

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