Spring is on the way...

It really is! Look, bluebells coming up where we've just finished coppicing:

and Lords and Ladies (or Wild Arum or Cuckoo Pint, depending on what you call it) too:

Dog's Mercury as well:

and also Honeysuckle:

with even the most dead-looking vines are coming to life:

Now the coppicing is all done, I've turned the photos I took most days we were there into a short time-lapse video of the coppicing. It's weird to watch, as the wood has changed so much as we cut the trees down. If I can remember to take enough, maybe I'll make another time lapse video of it all growing back...

Mike

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Last weekend in the woods

It's been a very busy week at the Ashden Awards, which is why it's taken until now for me to post the photos I took last weekend...

The area near our camp is now swamped by a carpet of green:
The fruit trees are coming on well:
but one particular birch tree is having a tough time with caterpillars:
Don't know the species though - leave a comment if you know what they are.

We've got yet more new plants moving into this area as well. I think this one is Hedge Bedstraw (correct me if I'm wrong), which we've not seen before:
Another one that's nice to see is Elder:
The thistles are back, and we have at least two varieties, judging by the colours of the flowers:
What's quite amazing is standing at the boundary of the area we coppiced in 2007/8 and taking a photo in each direction. Here's the coppiced area:
and here's the view in the other direction:
You can see the huge difference in the variety of ground flora. This is why it's important to keep cutting different bits of the wood each year, so there are a variety of areas in different stages of growth, with different plants and habitats in them. It also works well for harvesting the wood, which I guess is why people have been managing woods this way for thousands of years!

Anyway, time for a Sweep Wood update, where everything is growing like crazy! At the top, the logs we sat on to eat lunch last winter are nearly hidden by nettles:
Hazel stools are growing nicely:
as are the Sweet Chestnut:and so are Sycamore (though we won't let these grow to the point where they seed, we have quite enough of them already!)
A new one for us is Ash - this is the first time we've been able to watch it grow after coppicing. The speed of growth is amazing:
especially when you look at how thick the stems are already, way ahead of the other species:
Down at the bottom of Sweep Wood there's a fungi on an Ash tree, in the same place as last year (which is not surprising):
Any ideas on the name? I wasn't sure...

Heading back to our own wood, the pond is looking good:
OK, you may not think that's good, but look closer:
there's other little creatures in there too, but I couldn't get a clear picture...

Down at the end of the path we coppiced in 2008/9, the honeysuckle we carefully protected is in full bloom:
which is a treat for the White Admiral butterfly. We saw two of them near our entrance, the first recorded sighting in the area this year:
Other insects are out and about too, there's loads of dragonflies around in the wayleave:
and last but not least, first picture of a Meadow Brown this year:
That's all for now...

Mike

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First Brimstones of the year!

We were up a the woods yesterday doing a few odd jobs, and excited to see a male Brimstone butterfly in our wood. I changed camera lenses while Tracy kept an eye on it, then I chased it out into the wayleave trying to get a picture, only ot find a second one out there! Brimstones are fast and don't land very often, and at this time of year there's precious little food to tempt them to land anyway, so I had to try and get photos of it in flight, in between running to keep up with it. Hence they're pretty poor pics, but here they are anyway as proof of the Brimstones' presence - you can't mistake them because of the colour:
There's other signs of Spring too, such as honeysuckle and thistle coming into leaf:
And also the fact that there's enough sunshine to light the kelly kettle with a magnifying glass!
Mike

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Making kindling, and some other odds and ends

On Friday we visited our friend Fiona at her wood, and she told me a neat way to make kindling (or in this case, fuel for our woodgas stove and kelly kettle). As soon as we were in our wood, I tried it out.

You start by tying something round the log you intend to split up. I used a piece of rope with a slip-knot in it, but Fiona suggested a piece of bike inner tube - next time I get a puncture I'll try this.Then, use your froe and wooden mallet to put a split down the middle:
Turn it 90 degrees and repeat:
Then carry on making parallel splits, according to the thickness of kindling you want:
Turn 90 degrees again and repeat:and finally, take the rope off:
Neat eh?

We used some immediately to cook lunch, and I also discovered that the kelly kettle fits neatly on top of the woodgas stove, allowing you to make a hot drink after cooking without lighting another fire:
Also, because the kettle creates a good updraught, you can even unplug the fan in the woodgas stove, producing an interesting effect when you look down from the top:
We rearranged our little camp yesterday to benefit from more of the shade from the oaks, and also make it easier to get things in and out of the shelter. We took the opportunity to rebuild the fireplace and make a table beside it with a spare concrete slab I'd picked up near home recently:
While we were sat there having lunch, look what slithered by:
We'd better keep an eye out, this is the first time we've seen an adder this close to our camp - I guess they like the hot ground there on sunny days!

The heat had also brought out a huge range of insects, such as crickets and dragonflies:
and butterflies too - here's my first photo of a White Admiral this summer, and one of a Speckled Wood too:
We took a walk up into Sweep Wood (my parents' patch), and clipped back branches that were reaching into the public footpath. Along the way we saw a fungus which I'd happened to take a photo of nine days earlier. Here's the first photo:
and here's the later one, after just nine days!
We also noticed that there's a lot of honeysuckle out in Sweep Wood, it'll be nice in a year or two when the butterflies can get to it, after we've coppiced there...
Finally, we found a tree that was very interesting, mainly because it has fruit on it! I think they're plums, but we'll see how they develop over the coming weeks:
Mike

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