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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Slow worm, mushrooms and plants

We had a visit today from our friends Alex and Sarah, who are in the process of buying a wood near ours, which is very exciting for us and them! We had a walk round our wood, and also round theirs, and on the way saw our first slow worm:
It was a male, as it had some blue spots, although these are not always present:
One of the differences between a snake and a slow worm is that the slow worm's tongue is notched rather than forked: Like some other lizards the slow worm has the bizarre ability to detach its tail if it's caught, growing a new one later. This is called autotomy.

We saw a huge variety of fungi in the woods. Sorry, no names, just some interesting pictures:

Tracy also took a quick photo survey of some of the new plants growing in the cant of coppice we cut last winter in addition to those already covered. These are all new this year, since we cut the coppice - we may ID some of them when they flower.
This last one's interesting, as it's moss growing on the site of one of our brash fires from last winter. I guess the fire killed any seeds in the ground there, and the moss has been the first plant to move back in. The new plants have also brought new insects with them, such as dragonflies, and this ladybird:
We also delivered the firewood we'd split and loaded yesterday:
The customer was only just off our route to the wood, so that avoided any extra fuel use. This is always important with wood fuel as it's bulky, so energy used in transport can quickly offset the energy value of the wood.

We're up there again tomorrow to do a bit more work and also have more visitors. It's meant to rain from Sunday, and I'm working five days next week, so we want to make the most of tomorrow!

Mike

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