Frozen river

Today was a day when I was glad to be working at home instead of in the wood. It's not been as cold in Rye as further inland, but still cold enough for the river near hour house to freeze over:
The ducks didn't seem to mind though. They stood around the edge of a pool they'd kept clear by swimming, occasionally jumping in for a wash and then standing at the edge preening. Maybe it's their equivalent of sitting by the pool on a beach resort in Spain?
Mike

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More birds

I got plenty of photos of birds in the past couple of days, all taken in the cant that we cut last winter. Some of them I've posted here before, but I've got better pictures now, so here they are.

First up, one of the robins (there's at least two that we see around our camp):
Here he is looking cold in the snow:
and here he is picking at one of the bits of food we've left out for him:
Next is a wren. Today one came about a metre from me, but sadly I didn't have my camera with me at the time, so this is still the best picture so far (taken at a greater distance and cropped):
A few days ago I posted some pictures of a juvenile Goldcrest. Well, here's the adult
There was actually a small flock of them hopping around in the leaves - they seem to like the boundary between the cant we cut and the trees that are still standing next to it - more evidence of the "edge effect" I guess.

Here's one I was pleased to capture properly for the first time - a Nuthatch:
He was prowling around an oak, examining the bark to see if there were any bugs to eat:
And finally, a mystery bird - I was only able to get a photo of it in the distance, and have tried to clean it up a bit. It was about the size of a Wood Pigeon, perhaps a little larger. But the colours aren't those of a pigeon I think. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.
Mike

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Odds and ends

Just a couple of things that didn't really fit in the post on the snow. But lets start with a picture of the moon through the trees:
First thing to mention, I tried an improvement to the firewood processing method. One of the problems I'd found was that on the last couple of cuts the logs tended to move around a bit, so I tried strapping them up:
It worked quite nicely, you just have to position the strap so there's no chance of cutting through it!

The other thing to mention is that Tracy unfortunately snagged her chainsaw trousers with her saw:
It's annoying, as it's only a small tear, but it went into the protective material, so we've had to order a new pair at £70. Still, better than a trip to hospital...

Mike

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Footprints in the snow

The view out the window this morning was:
We drove to the wood and parked at the bottom of the wayleave, which had a thin covering of snow:As we walked up we were keeping an eye out for animal tracks - I've tried to identify them, but feel free to correct me, as I'm not an expert tracker! The first one we saw was a fox, which had padded its way down the track:
I stopped for a quick photo along the footpath where we've been cutting:
Next up was a bird, possibly a blackbird from the size of the prints, and the fact that they were in pairs (from hopping?), but I'm not really sure:
and after that a pheasant, clearly walking rather than hopping like the smaller birds do:
Then we reached the wood
The first tracks here were human and dog:
It was interesting as we wandered round the wood looking at the footprints to see how many people had walked their dogs through our wood this morning, and where they'd come from.

Inside the wood we could see where a squirrel had been:
including up on the log piles:
and our of our outdoor "tables":
Before we did any work we walked around the wood - it's not often we get to see it in the snow.
Although today it did keep snowing for a while in the morning:That's all for now - I'll do another post tomorrow with some pictures of a robin, a goldcrest and wren.

Mike

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An afternoon in the woods

I popped up to the woods this afternoon with Nigel, a friend from church. We had the obligatory cup of tea and walk around to see what's going on first. Nigel suggested some native trees we might like to plant, such as crab apple (for the boar to eat) and cherry (blossom for insects and cherries for the birds) - he has a couple of acres just a few miles away, where he's spent a number of years planting up fields with interesting trees. We're hoping to plant some appropriate trees over the next couple of months, probably along the ride edges where they'll be guaranteed light in years to come.

Today's bird in the dead hedge at the junction clearing was a blackbird:
It's nice to see birds in it - we've put some wild bird food in it, but they haven't touched it yet...

We did some work too: splitting logs to go in the racks:
and coppicing the smaller stems along our main ride:
This leaves it clear for us to go in tomorrow with the chainsaws and quickly fell the larger stuff.

Mike

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