Coppicing between the storms

The weather has been a bit stormy recently, with wind and rain making working in the woods at best unattractive and at worst risky, but there have been a few glimpses of the sun in between.

I've been making reasonable progress on the coppicing, considering how little time I've actually been up there cutting:

There was even a bit of frost one morning!

Back over near our camp, we've started filling the bird feeder regularly again. The birds empty it over the course of 48 hours, so when they notice me arrive they usually turn up and wait for me to fill it:

Then as soon as I'm done they get in there as fast as they can...

The visitors included Coal tits...

Great tits...

Blue tits...

and sometimes several of them at once!

Of course, the small birds spill some of the seeds, which provides food for the Pheasants. A male and female turned up, and given how tame they were I suspect they may have been around last winter as well.

Finally, over near where I was coppicing, Tracy and I spotted a Buzzard down in a field, possibly finishing off a meal:

It was quite a long way off, and I tried getting closer for a better shot...

but sadly was noticed...

Anyway, I'm hoping to get some more Buzzard photos, as they've been around the woods a lot more over the past few months, and I've seen a pair of them soaring overhead.

Hoping for some drier weather in the coming weeks to get back up there to do some more work and photography...

Mike

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Coppicing update

Unlike today, with torrential rain and strong winds, yesterday started sunny and calm, with another hard frost:We made good progress on the coppicing, but first a few other pictures.

Here's a buzzard circling over the woods. Sorry it's not a better picture, but as the bird was heading away there was no time to swap to the zoom lens. We saw a couple of them earlier in the week as well, but didn't get a picture.
This wasn't the only bird overhead, a flock of seagulls came over too. They looked like they were on a mission of some sort - it's rare to see them over the wood, they're usually down at the coast.
I've mentioned before that, where possible, we've left standing dead wood while coppicing the rides. Here's why:
And here's the biggest piece of standing dead wood (well, OK, it's only part dead):
OK, to the coppicing... We completed cutting the sides of the footpath all the way up to the junction yesterday, so here's a series of pictures walking you up the footpath from the stile to the junction. Our wood is on the right, and Roy & Patricia's is on the left.The final one is looking past the junction, where we'll be working next week. The junction is where we're in the process of creating a small clearing, simply because the merging rides form most of it anyway. At one edge, where we're yet to cut, is this coppice stool:
but just behind it is a jungle of honeysuckle:
We're hoping that once the stool is cut then White Admiral butterflies and other insects will be able to get to the honeysuckle easily, making this a busy and interesting clearing.

Although it all looks quite desolate at the moment, it will be completely different in six months time. Remember what happened in the cant we cut last winter? In March it looked like this:
But then by summer we we're seeing sights like these:We're looking forward to it...

Mike

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