Birds, drones and Christmas in the woods

The coppicing still isn't finished... there's only a day's work left to do, but I've been ill, so have had to take a break from the woodland work. I did still manage to get up there a bit for some less strenuous activities though, such as cooking a Christmas lunch for us and a friend:

We've changed the birds' food too - they seemed to be rejecting several types of seed that were in the mix we were using in the feeder, so we tried peanuts instead, which proved an immediate hit:

I also managed to get some shots of a buzzard coming to visit, though I doubt the peanuts would be of much interest...

Finally, we also had a different kind of aerial visitor:

This was a DJI drone, brought by Nate of www.buzzardfilms.co.uk, who used it to carry out inspection surveys of some of our oak trees, to check branches for disease or damage that wouldn't be visible from the ground. Here's one of the videos:

Meanwhile, back at home, our cockatiels have been eating chilli peppers...

Hope you have a great 2018, see you in the New Year!

Mike

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Nearing the end of coppicing...

With the colder weather and the lack of leaves on the trees, it's easier to get photos of birds in the woods, so here's a Marsh Tit and a Blue Tit:

The coppicing is proceeding well. Here's a photo from the end of day 1:

And here's a photo from the end of yesterday:

Don't worry if it looks a bit drastic, the trees will all grow back and while they're doing it there'll be a great habitat for the wildlife.

Here's a few other views of the area we've been coppicing this year:

There's only about 20 stools left to coppice now, but they'll take longer than you'd think as there's a lot of hazel in there, and processing it is a slow job.

Still, we should have it done by the end of the year, fitting it around work and other commitments...

Mike

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