Old woodland photos

A friend of ours, Jenny, who lives near the wood had these photos on some placemats. She's had them scanned, so now we can show everyone. They're taken in the general area of our wood, from when it was coppiced some years ago. As you can see, they used to do the whole wood in one go!
Mike

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Rain!

Well, we did go to the woods today, as we were meeting someone there to talk about opportunities for working together later this year (which went well), but the weather was so miserable we didn't get a single tool out of the land rover. We did get to walk round the wood at least, and saw the nice new bridge that the footpath people came and built a couple of weeks ago, over the stream on the other side of the wayleave:
The old one is behind it in pieces - I expect it was easy to break up, as it had got pretty rotten.

Back in Sweep Wood, we noticed that something, perhaps rabbits or squirrels, have been gnawing the bark on some Ash trees:
They'd better not let me catch them at it or there'll be trouble....

Mike

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Back to the woods again

We made it to the woods today for the first time in ages! We weren't working, but were meeting someone who wanted to buy some of the Hazel we'd felled in Sweep Wood over the winter. We're going up to work tomorrow, so will have some more pictures to come after that.

Spring is definitely in the air, but before we come to that, take a look at what this Great Tit found:
I'd noticed this hollow when I felled the tree, and though it would probably be a nice feature for the wildlife - I'm pleased to see that it is!

OK, signs of Spring (all photos from Sweep Wood, just up the hill from Chestnut Coppice)...

Hazel catkins:
Snowdrops (garden escapees?):
Elder leaves growing:
Bluebells pushing their way up:

I think the growth of the plants will start to accelerate soon, although there could be a bit more snow to come first...

Mike

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A few pictures from Scotland

I've been travelling quite a bit for my Ashden Awards work in the past few weeks, so haven't made it to the woods much. One upside though is that I've been to Northwest Scotland for a few days! I can't say exactly where, as that would give away who I was visiting, but here's some photos I took along the way...
If the organisation I visited gets through to be one of our finalists, I have a who lot more photos to post, but that will have to wait a few months...

Mike

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More snow!

As snow was forecast for the next few days, I thought I would nip up to the wood to feed the birds. Well, as I arrived it snowed so heavily! Really cold, really pretty and I could hardly see! You can tell how hard it is falling by how white it gets by the time I walked through to our cant (area) with the bird feeder.


I decided that the only way the birds would find the crushed up fat balls would be to put them under some kind of a shelter, so I used this old box lid to create and covering. Not sure how long it will last but hopefully it will help a little.
The only birds I saw were at the top of the wood, delighted with what I left them. Robin, blackbird and great tit came down very quickly!

The most exciting thing though, was seeing the first blue bell leaves pushing their way up. It was getting too wet to take out the camera for another photo, but the bluebell leaves are a couple of inches above the ground. Can't wait to see them all in their full splendour soon. Our Lord is amazing in his creativity!

Tracy

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Hello from Pete and Tom

I'm busy visiting the shortlisted applicants for the Ashden Awards at the moment, so I've not been getting up to the wood very much. So, in the absence of any woodland photos, here's a couple of videos of Pete and Tom, our cockatiels.

Pete can be very demanding sometimes - in this video Tracy's working, but Pete thinks she should stop to preen his feathers. Eventually he gives up trying to distract her and goes to do the preening himself...


And in this video, he's just showing off and singing!

Mike

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