Summer in the woods and Dungeness

It's been a while since I last updated this blog, and there's been a lot going on - including me starting a new job part-time in addition to my existing work! But first, let's catch up on some photos from the woods over the past few months. Spring brought the usual display of flowers, such as these Wood Anemones, but a little later than some years as it was quite chilly.

The wild apple tree near our camp in the woods had another good display of blossom - I look forward to seeing how many apples develop, not that I'll be eating any of them...

And of course the bluebells were looking as great as ever in May:

Up at the top of the hill, where we coppiced last winter, things are growing back nicely. Here's some Ash and Sweet Chestnut:

The whole area has greened up a lot, and the brash piles are slowly disappearing from view:

I did also get this great video of a Buzzard eating its prey (probably a pigeon), followed by a fox coming to sniff around after it had gone!

Only one camping trip so far this year, but we had great weather for it and plenty of time to sit round the fire.

The big news is I've got a part-time job for 6 months as a Ranger at Dungeness National Nature Reserve. I'm doing this alongside my existing work at Ashden, so I've suddenly become rather busy, and the preceding couple of months were busy too as I tried to 'clear the decks' of any jobs that needed doing at home and in the woods. Dungeness is certainly a nice place to be in the summer!

I get a truck do drive around:

And it's not just about the sea and the shingle, there's also the 'long pits' which you only get to see if you venture away from the usual tourist attractions near the main car park:

One other thing I did manage to squeeze in before starting the Ranger work was a day at the Hands of Hope site in Hawkhurst, where there's a kind of community garden and also a woodland - my friend Rich and I went and volunteered for a day to help fell some dangerous trees.

Finally, closer to home, there was a strange object on the beach at Rye Harbour....

It's actually an art installation called The Beacon, by Joseph Williams, intended to draw attention to the fragility of the area and the growing impacts of climate change. It's a bit odd to look at, but quite amazing once you're inside it:

It's actually modelled on the Yellow Horned Poppy, which grows in the area:

Also at Rye Harbour, we recently visited a bird hide at Castle Water, which we'd not been to before. It really has some excellent views:

I got a number of nice photos of Cormorants there:

Did you know Cormarants nest in trees? They look a bit big to do that, but they really do:

And finally, a nice little family of Greylag Geese on one of the other lakes in the reserve:

That's all for now :-)

Mike

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Springtime in the woods - flowers and butterflies

We took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to go for lunch in the woods with my parents, who were visiting for the day. Although I saw solitary Bluebells a couple of weeks ago, there's a liberal scattering now visible!

The Wood Anemones are also looking good, now at the height of their flowering:

Between them and the Bluebells, the woodland is completely green now!

In the wayleave there are also Violets in flower, to the delight of various insects:

There's a good number of Primroses too - these were near the roadside:

Also scattered amongst the Wood Anemones over in Sweep Wood are Lesser Celandine and an occasional Daffodil:

The butterflies are also out in force now, here's a Small Tortoiseshell:

a Comma:

and a Peacock:

The birds are busy too - we saw some scouting out nesting sites, and the pheasants are strutting around making a lot of noise as usual for the time of year:

The trees all come into leaf at different times - Oak is still some way off, but Hornbeam is coming out now:

Hawthorn is well on the way:

Hazel is just starting:

and in the warmer spots in Sweep Wood there are even some Sweet Chestnut leaves appearing, but in most parts of the woods they are not started yet:

Here's a view of an area we coppiced in 2010/11, with ground cover growing like crazy:

And here's the area we cut in autumn 2013 - we spotted a few butterflies making the best of the new sunlight in this area already!

Finally, Tracy had her class visit the woods this week, so their dens/shelters are now in a better state of repair:

One group even got as far as making some miniature clay pots for the den's 'kitchen'!

We're looking forward to some more sunny days so we can spend time in the woods, now the wet weather has passed...

Mike

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Wood Anemone in flower

Spring is well and truly here - there are Wood Anemones in flower!

The woodland as a whole is looking much greener than it was just a week or two ago. This picture is over in Alex's wood, where I was helping my friend Rich (the woodland manager) finish off the last of the road edge trees.

Rich has been busy experimenting with a new way of stacking logs, using lengths at right-angles to make air gaps between the logs. He's going to see if this speeds up the seasoning of the wood, but it also had the advantage of removing the need for stakes at the ends of the stack:

Mike

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Spring in the woods and making charcoal

The woodland is looking amazing now, with the Spring flowers finally showing themselves. We had several friends come and visit us in the woods on the bank holiday, so a charcoal top up was needed for BBQ cooking - this time we made a short video showing how this simple method of making charcoal in a kiln works, using an oil drum and a smaller barrel:

We had plenty of time to see the displays of flowers. In the darker parts of the wood there are still mostly Wood Anemones, though with some Bluebells mixed in:

There's the first signs of shade as well, now that the leaves are appearing on the trees:

The sunnier parts of the wood are looking good with Bluebells, especially over in Sweep Wood:

The coppice is growing quickly again there as well:

Over in Smock Wood, the ride I cut a couple of years ago is looking great:

What's particularly interesting there is that there are a lot of Violets, which weren't in evidence there a few years ago, so I guess that's a positive result from cutting the ride:

The bit of the wayleave that I cut last winter is coming on well too:

As usual the wayleave is full of wildlife again...

And finally... this year we are hoping that we'll actually get some fruit, as the bees should be out at the same time as the blossom, unlike last year...

Mike

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