Clearing up from the weekend

We had a very busy weekend, with all kinds of visitors to the wood. Although I've done a few posts, there's still some odds and ends I'd like to mention. I'll start with yet another bluebells photo though, this time form the top end of our wood, where I'd not been since the bluebells came out:OK, on to other stuff. I already mentioned the SWOG butterfly ID day, but what I hadn't mentioned was that our friends Rich and Penny camped in the wood the night before, as they live a fair distance away. I was very impressed that they didn't use a normal tent, they used a mosquito net tent, and rigged a tarpaulin over that - and a good job too, as it rained! Rich proved to be a natural with the air rifle:
and Penny hit the target first time too, but I'm not allowed to post the photo of her as she's pulling a funny face! :-)

As you probably already know, Tracy found a WW2 bullet casing in the woods, but there was plenty of digging for other stuff with our friends Dave & Anna and Greg & Amy, who came for the day on Monday:Nothing yet in this hole - it's a strong signal, but must be deep, so it could be something big. Hope it's not a live WW2 bomb!

While we were walking round we saw this pheasant's egg, I assume a chick hatched from it:
and also saw another that someone had left on top of this stump. Looks like something attacked it, and it's not going to hatch now...
The pond is looking very green again
and I was pleased to see this hawthorn growing nicely. The spray of fresh shoots are coming out where I damaged a branch during felling in the winter. I'd cut the branch of cleanly after this, so I'm pleased to see that this has worked:
The same happened to a young oak last winter, and I was very annoyed, having missed it with at least ten trees and then hit it with the last one. Anyway, I'd pollarded it, hoping that it would regrow and that the shoots would be out of reach of the rabbits:
so I was delighted to see this on the side of it:
It's much slower growing than the chestnut or birch, but we're going to keep cutting them along the sides of the path every few years, so this oak should get enough light to keep growing. Who knows, as a pollard it may grow to be an interestingly shaped tree one day? I'll keep an eye on it.

Mike

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Birds and stuff

As usual for a day off from working in the woods, I had a cold yesterday. But I was mostly OK again today, so we went up to the woods, although for a shorter and quieter day. We'd not been there long when a robin came to visit us. Here's some pictures (just a few of the many I took!):We've also seen a wren hopping around in the log piles, but not managed to get a photo yet. The small birds seem to love the piles of logs and sticks we've left for them, hopefully they will find the dead hedge we've been making alongside the footpath, and enjoy that too.

There was a bigger bird around today as well - a pheasant:
They're not hunted in our woods, and there seem to be a fair number of them proudly strutting around. I hear pheasants aren't known for their intelligence - this one looked at us, then appeared to pretend it hadn't seen us and just walked slowly away. I'm surprised they survive at all...
I also went back to the dead oak with the holes in it. We'd had a good look at it and tried some photos a couple of days ago when our friends Paul and Penny were up with their family, and today I had a go with a longer lens and the flash. Without the flash:

and with the flash:
As you can see, the flash lets you see inside the hole, despite it being some way off. I'm hopeful that if some birds nest in there in the spring I might be able to get some photos.

After all that we got a few jobs done, mainly tidying up some logs, building more racks and splitting off-cuts for firewood.
One thing that we're doing is making use of each return trip form the work site to our base in the wood, e.g. at lunch and the end of the day, to carry a few of the split off-cuts back: This is one of the keys to efficient work in the woods - make sure you're carrying something on every trip! The off-cuts are going into the drying shelter, where we'll use them for cooking later next year.

Couple of days off now, although on Sunday we're going to another wood nearby to do some volunteer coppicing for Butterfly Conservation. It'll be strange to go back to bow saws for a day - no chainsaws on volunteer days!

Mike

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A dead oak and felling in the wayleave

We first saw our wood about 21 months ago. Since then we've walked round pretty much every part of it at least once. We've measured every single oak. Yet despite all this there are still surprises ready to jump out at us from every corner.

Today, walking along the main ride from our base to where we're felling, I noticed an interesting dead-looking oak tree. Granted, when the leaves were on it would not have been obvious, but I don't understand why we didn't see it last winter. Here it is:
To get an idea of why it's special, here's a closer view:
Standing dead oak is a fabulous wildlife habitat for things like bats, woodpeckers and much more besides. The following pictures are just a few of the holes we could see in this tree:
We're going to keep an eye on this tree, and see what's living there. Could be interesting...

Moving on, we've been hearing a lot of noise coming from the far end of the wayleave, chainsaws and a big chipper by the sound of it. Today we went to investigate, and here's what we saw:

It seems that the trees at the edge, that are hanging over the wayleave, are being logged, while the trees in the middle of the wayleave are being chipped. Although it's doing a certain amount of damage, it's less than I'd feared it might be. We don't yet know if they'll be carrying on past our entrance and down to the road.

And finally, we also did some coppicing, as that was why we were actually there! We're working on the other parts of the footpath and the main ride at the junction. Here's before&after of a part where Tracy was working (it wasn't possible to get all the parts into one photo).
I was doing similar work behind where the camera is, and we worked together on some of the larger trees, Tracy snedding while I did logging and splitting, prior to stacking the split logs straight into the racks we'd put up yesterday.

That's all for now, more to follow tomorrow, when we'll hopefully complete the clearing around the path/ride junction and carry on up the path.

Mike

p.s. We also had one slight annoyance today - some helpful person had decided to lift out a few of the pieces of hardcore we'd been using to repair the track in the wayleave, leaving them in a position where they might damage a vehicle coming along the track. We've put it all back in place, and also took photos and reported the incident to the police - not that they will follow it up, but just to keep a log of things like this in case action needs to be taken in future.

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