An afternoon in the woods

For various reasons we've not made it to the woods for a couple of weeks, so it was great to get back up there yesterday afternoon, and also have some friends from church visit. We're looking at using the wood for a couple of different groups to visit for BBQ or camping - I just hope we get more weather like yesterday's!

The mixture of recent rain and strong sunshine has really made the plants shoot up, some of the coppice we cut last winter has grown a few feet already!

Also in that area there are Bluebell seeds now ready to grow - we might collect a few and scatter them more widely I think...

Further up the hill, where we cut the previous winter, the foxgloves are still putting on a good show:

Deeper inside the wood everything is very green, but there's more evening shade now:

This winter we think we might selectively cut some of the coppice stools along the rides, to create alternating ages and a permanent 'shrub layer' which should be beneficial for the wildlife.

Speaking of wildlife, we saw a few hornets near the camp today. Don't forget these aren't any more dangerous than a normal wasp, and are in fact less aggressive. I only managed to get a poor picture of one - wrong camera setting, so entirely my fault! Here it is though:

Remember that's a chestnut leaf it's on - the insect is over an inch long!

Anyway, now work has calmed down a bit we should be visiting the woods more often, so normal service shall be resumed on this blog!

Mike

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The birds and the bees

Yes, literally. Let's start with the birds:

We saw this Great Tit hanging around a Cherry tree we'd left during last winter's coppicing:

It was only after taking the photo and zooming in we saw the caterpillar in its mouth, so then we waited to see where the nest was. It's amazing how small a space they appear to need:

Anyway, onto the bees. The foxgloves are now in flower, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to photograph the bees feeding there. The trick is to watch the bee go into a flower, and during the few seconds it spends in there you get into position and get focus lock, fully depressing the shutter release just as the bee appears. It works best with flash, even in full daylight:

though without flash you get a nice motion blur on the wings:

There's loads of other insect life around enjoying the warm weather, such as this damselfly

Not surprising really, when you see what a jungle the top of Sweep Wood has become. We might need to go along with a scythe soon and clear the path!

Lower down the hill, where we cut the coppice recently, the bluebells have now faded and are being replaced by goosegrass, or 'sticky grass' as I used to call it when I was younger:

Finally, here's a few photos from the bottom of Sweep Wood, showing it not long after we finished cutting, then when the bluebells were out, and then yesterday:

Mike

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Foxgloves are flowering

A little earlier than expected, the foxgloves that started growing last year after we'd coppiced have now started flowering:

There's only a few our so far, and the size varies a lot at the moment, from the tall to the short:

The flowers are stunning though, this is the first time I've tried getting some close-up photos of them.

When this whole bank of them is flowering, it's going to look amazing:

The buttercups are out in force now as well, and this time I managed to get a picture of one without too much of the petals being overexposed:

In an earlier post I had pictures of a plant some readers thought was pignut. Well, I can confirm it is, after taking a better pic of the flowers, and also some of the leaves:

We had some visitors come to walk round and see the effects of the coppicing this weekend, and there was plenty of insect life for them to see. The Peacock butterflies are looking a bit sorry for themselves, as these are ones that have hibernated through the winter:

But there were some healthier looking Green Veined Whites around:

and a Long Horned Moth was ID'd for us:

I'm sure someone said this dragonfly was a Chaser, but I forget the exact name...

and I've no idea what this little guy is:

I'm not great on caterpillar ID either, but here's some pics anyway. I'm going on a course to learn more about caterpillars in a couple of weeks, so maybe I'll improve...

That's all for now. We'll be up in the woods again soon to see how the foxgloves are getting on...

Mike

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