A new animal in the woods

I was awake early as usual but yesterday I was keen to get out of bed. I was going to the woods to meet up with Robin from The Woodland Trust for a review so I would combine that with some more work clearing the coppiced area ready for the deer netting to go up. The sun was out, a good weather forecast and I wasn’t to be disappointed by it. I arrived pretty early and as usual I spent some time just walking around and observing, always keen to see what has changed since last time. Nothing much new yet but the wood anemones are flowering nicely and there’s a fine green carpet covering most of the wood.

I am particularly interested in birdlife but not an expert spotter. I’d seen what I thought was a treecreeper on a few occasions but this time I had my binocs and got a good long look at one as it walked up a tree examining the nooks and crannies for insects. I was surprised how small they are, no bigger then a bluetit but the tail makes it look longer. Apparently they make their nest in small crevices under dead bark. From a distance they can be confused with nuthatches but creepers only go up the tree, then fly to the base of another and climb again, whereas nuthatches can walk down trees as well as up. I kept hearing a bird call in a nearby tree. I couldn’t ID it then (turned out to be a nuthatch) but it consisted of two or three long, straight whistles rising in frequency (like you might call a dog with). I tried my best to imitate it and sure enough it answered back. No coincidence, it called back numerous times right after I whistled. Eventually it stopped, either it sussed my amateurish nuthatch call or it was so good that it figured me to be the dominant male and decided to find another patch. Maybe I said something rude to it in nuthatch-talk and offended it. These are Google images of the two birds

Treecreeper (not my photo though)

nuthatch (again not my photo)

I also spotted a buzzard overhead and heard a tawny owl again. Would love to see the owl. I had a really relaxed session, took plenty of photos then got stuck into some graft, felling another two small trees and clearing the timber. I’m starting to get a huge pile of brash (the small branches and leaves after cutting the trunks into logs). Traditionally woodsmen burnt it but I have ideas to make brash hedges eventually. That way I don’t damage the earth with the fire and it will provide habitat for lots of creatures and birds. I didn’t intend to start that yet but as the pile is getting large and might supress ground cover underneath, decided I should start moving it. I have an area earmarked for a tent and thought a hedge around it would be good. So I started dragging the holly brash through the woods and commenced the hedge. It’s not much to look at yet but at least I’ve started it.

start of my brash hedge using holly

So what about the new animal in the woods? Well on my rounds I found the head of an unidentified animal. I can’t find it in any of my nature books. I showed my wife the picture and I think she correctly ID’d it as Felis Saccus which roughly translates to the English as “Bagpuss”. I wonder if reintroducing them would keep the grey squirrels at bay?

Felis Saccus?

More trees planted, more felling

Yesterday was another early start. Weather fine and bright. I had a list of jobs to aim for. I always have more than I know I can achieve in a day but you have to aim high. I’d bought five blackthorn saplings for £6.00 at a local nursery. A bargain I couldn’t resist. More flowering trees to brighten the woods and eventually I hope to get some sloes from them to make sloe gin or vodka. So that was the first job, all of them planted down in the open cleared area along the border.

I’m trying to increase the plant diversity, particularly in the area where game birds were kept which is fairly sparse. I’d already transplanted a few clumps of Lords & Ladies but during a walkabout through a vacant, unsold plot, I noticed quite a few clumps of wild primrose. I haven’t seen any in my plot and was a little naughty and lifted a few pieces (all for the sake of the wider wood of course). So I planted these up in various places, marking them with a coloured stick so I can find them again and monitor their progress. I took the time to have a good look at what is starting to grow now. To add to my list since last time, I noticed some early wood anemone flowers, clumps of lesser celandine and ramsons (wild garlic). There were other fresh plants but as yet haven’t identified them.

An early wood anemone in flower

lesser celandine leaves

ramson or wild garlic leaves

After filling up the bird feeders, it was lunch time. I made a coffee on my little stove and sat watching for the birds. Not many around but I saw a small bird walking up a tree. It was either a nuthatch or more likely a tree creeper. It was very pale underneath and looked brown on it’s back. Somewhere in another plot I heard a tawny owl.

I have been trying to map the woods since I got it. It’s a low priority job and time consuming. I have a rough map but some of the reference locations don’t seem right and I wanted to record roughly where I have planted trees and other things. So I spent some time taking some measurements and making rough notes. I spent several hours back home trying to decipher my notes and make sense of them on my map. It’s surprising how easily you forget why you made certain marks on your notes so the lesson is to be methodical and clear. I’m slowly getting there.

By now it was mid afternoon and I wanted to do some more thinning where the hazel is being coppiced. There’s a huge holly tree on the corner which will block out a lot of light. When I say huge, it stood about ten metres high at least. It’s multi-branched so needed to be cut in several places. I’ve taken about 2/3 of it down now but time was getting short and so was my energy. I decided to pack up and head home again.

A few more jobs before spring comes

Spring is definitely around the corner. When I arrived yesterday, lots of small birds were flitting around in the tree tops, looking for mates and exploring nooks and crannies. I spotted one tree which was earmarked for felling, had a couple of small holes in the trunk high up and a bluetit was busy peering into them. I’ll have to leave that one alone now!

Fifth bird box located on an old crab apple tree

Sixth bird box for wrens and robins, well hidden and low down between the two trees. Hope the birds find it.

Bird box number seven is for great tits attached to a larch tree

It was yet another gloriously sunny and mild day. I got an early start and fitted three new bird nest boxes. Two for great tits and one for wrens and robins. It might be too late in the year for birds to adopt them as they usually need to get used to them being there. But fingers crossed. I carried on clearing away the limbs of hazel that I had cut down last time and felled two more young sycamore to bring in more light to the area. Still a bit more clearing to do there before erecting the deer netting around it.

There’s an area in the woods that is lacking groundcover where pheasants had been reared. Eventually I shall fell some of the poor trees there to bring light in and hope for natural regeneration of plants. In the meantime, I’m going to start transplanting a few from other areas. So yesterday I divided some clumps of Lords and Ladies and replanted five pieces and marked them with a colours stick so I can monitor their progress through the season. I shall try to gather seeds of other plants during summer and propagate more plants this way. A slow process but I’d prefer to keep the plant inventory to the natural ones that are already growing, just want more of them and maybe some that are present in other people’s woods but lacking in mine.

All in all it was a satisfying and productive day. Plenty of time to enjoy the experience of being there and getting useful jobs done. I love that place.

10 new trees and spring observations

So far I’ve planted twenty three small saplings in the areas I’ve cleared of bramble. Trouble is they are only about 30cm high so all you can see is the tree guards and stakes. I wanted a few taller trees you can see above the guards, that could be dotted around to create some variety of size and something for me to see growing. I found a special offer at a Tree nursery of ten bare rooted trees approx. 2m high. Two each of birch, wild cherry, bird cherry, crab apple and rowan. I collected them yesterday and headed down to the wood to plant them. They were strapped to my roof bars and it felt like I was carrying my babies out there. I drove pretty slowly all the way. It took me most of the rest of the day to plant them up. They needed quite a large hole digging but first job was to prepare the planting area by weeding out the cut-back bramble roots. They are tough knotty clumps with long trailing roots. The knot of each one had a pink bud waiting to shoot up in a few weeks. So although I have cut them to the ground, I’m expecting them to resurface and when they do, I’ll keep hacking the new growth off until they give up the battle. After planting they needed staking and protecting with tree guards. Looking good now. That’s probably all I’ll plant till next season.

I took some time off from digging holes to have a short walk around and see what has started to grow. The hawthorn and elder trees are just starting to break bud and the wild honseysuckle is starting to open some leaves. On the ground the bluebell leaves started pushing through for two months but are now showing everywhere in abundance. Also spotted numerous clumps of Lords and Ladies also known as Cuckoopint, Herb Robert, Dogs Mercury and common nettles. My woods are slowly waking up!

Wild Honeysuckle leaves just opening

New leaves of Lords and Ladies

New leaves of Herb Robert

New leaves of Dogs Mercury