Repairing a culvert, butterfly spotting and a slow worm

The culvert we built 5 years ago in Sweep Wood has been in need of some maintenance... The downstream end had silted up, and the wooden 'kerb' had shifted:

The upstream end was a bit clogged up with debris too:

First step was to dig out all that debris, so I could get to the pipe to clear silt out of it:

Same again at the downstream end, which took a while due to the quantity of silt:

With that done I cut a new log to use as a 'kerb', and also made some stakes, all produced from wood we cut last winter just a short walk from the culvert:

I drove the stakes in with a post driver, cut them off, then re-pointed what was left over to make a extra stakes to drive in, Hopefully this will hold the new kerb in place for some years:

Here's the finished result, which will be much easier for people to walk over, and for me to drive over when the time next comes:

Just along the path from there is the area we coppiced last winter, which is growing back nicely now:

What's really striking is how many butterflies are there, when there would have been none a year ago. Here's a ragged looking Meadow Brown:

A couple of shots of a Comma:

And a Speckled Wood. In addition to these I also saw a Red Admiral, a Peacock and a Large White, but they didn't sit still for photos.

Back at the camp in Chestnut Coppice I was surprised to see a slow worm in the wood store when I went in there to get some logs after dark, but nice to know we've provided a dry home for it. I've also disturbed a wren sleeping in there at night as well!

That's all for now...

Mike

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August in the woods: logs and bugs

Thankfully it's been much sunnier this summer than last year, and there have been some good opportunities to photograph insects in the wayleave. I was particularly pleased with this shot of a male Souther Hawker dragonfly:

I got some more of another type of dragonfly too, but not sure what type it is:

Butterflies are also back in reasonable numbers, such as this Meadow Brown:

and this White Admiral (which was near our camp, rather than in the wayleave):

We've made use of the dry weather to finish moving logs back from further parts of the woods to near the camp:

We also squeezed a few chunky holly logs into the car to fill up the last little space in the firewood store at home:

Finally, here's a few views of sunshine in the woods, which was quite rare last year!

We've also have a few camping weekends, photos to come shortly from the most recent one...

Mike

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Butterflies at last!

The wet summer has not been great for the UK's butterflies, so it was pleasing to see so many this afternoon, especially as we had friends who'd been helped in coppicing in Sweep Wood visiting to see the wildlife benefits of their work! Some of them lived nearby, others were from Rother Guardians.

Here's one of the old favourites, a Peacock:

The Buddleja it's settled on has self-seeded at the top of Sweep Wood - we have quite a few garden escapees up there, and while I wouldn't have planted this one in a woodland, as it's arrived by itself I'm quite happy to leave it - and the butterflies are delighted I'm sure!

Just as a reminder, Sweep Wood used to look like this:

Then we got busy coppicing and it looked like this:

And just a year or two later it looks like this:

The hill in Sweep wood had lots of other butterflies present, especially Meadow Browns and Gatekeepers:

There were also various White butterflies, but I didn't get photos of them. Lots of dragonflies too - remember none of these insects were to be seen here before we did the coppicing:

Heading further into the woods we saw several Speckled Wood butterflies:

White Admirals:

and a beetle too...

In the wayleave were Comma butterflies and more dragonflies; I got a rare opportunity to photograph two together:

We also saw this wasp feeding on Common Figwort - apparently they're a good pollinator for them:

Great to see all of these creatures around again!

Mike

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Family visit to the woods

This week my parents and my sister Cath were in town for a couple of nights, and as it was sunny one of the days, we went for a visit to the woods, and my Dad took some photos...
It was the first time they'd seen the regrowth at the top of Sweep Wood, with the Ash, Elder and Chestnut doing exceptionally well:
There's a whole range of plants growing up there, and the insects are loving the thistles, including this Large White and Meadow Brown:
There's a few garden escapees as well, and I think this is the first time I've seen a tomato plant growing wild!
Our walk in the woods continued on, investigating animal borrows:
and trying out the new bridge over the stream:
We came across what I think was an egg from a Wood Pigeon:
Then we were back at the camp, where there were some logs we'd left lying around after splitting, as we heard Cath was keen to do some work up there! So we set her on them...
as a result, the store is now nearly full!
Mike

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