OUR FIRST BENCH, 2014

December 2014:  Alan, Roger and Steve inserting the legs

Then the hand-tooled (!) oak planks were coach-bolted into position

The finished article

Quality control

It served its purpose .  .  .  

.  .  .  and lasted nearly two years, until the summer holidays 2016

FLOODS 2013

 Christmas Eve 2013

A wee drop of rain tested the wall supporting our new stream crossing.  Once we unblocked the culvert the water went through instead of over.

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TALES OF THE WHITE HOUSE

Our toolshed, aka The White House, was delivered by a crane-bearing lorry in December 2013 

The driver was afraid of getting stuck in the mud so we had help from Farmer Willy Grey to get it into it's final resting place.

I've got a couple of amusing videos of this operation.  Willy couldn't see round the container when he lifted it on the front-loading forks of his tractor, so Alan and I shouted directions.  But he said he was a bit deaf and couldn't hear us either.  So we had to wave our arms, which was about as helpful as anyone trying to help you park in a small space.  

Anyway he surprisingly made it through the gateway unscathed, and magically positioned it in exactly the right place. 

Look how clean it looks in the photo with the willows behind it.

 

OLD MAN'S BEARD

December 2013

The fluffy seedheads of Old Man's Beard as it clambers over trees and bushes.

 It's our native Wild Clematis

LEAVE IT AHT

December 1st 2013

 

GHOSTS IN THE GRASS

 Skeletons of flower stems, as beautiful as winter tree silhouettes.

JUST DANDY

Dandelions seen today, undaunted by winter.

 

SLOW TO GO

 Sloes, fruits of the blackthorn, linger on.  

Lucky the thrush that notices them on this small, isolated bush.

FORKS IN TREES

 As a follow up to my post about rubbing branches not welding together here is a bit about stronger branch divisions within a tree.  This first photo is of a log from a cherry tree.  It came from the point where the trunk divided in two.  You can see the tree rings where one branch went off to the left and the other to the right.  

When I split it with an axe I was able to see how the wood fibres between the branches had grown over the years.

It seems that the place where the branches diverged had for many years grown a supporting, strengthening ridge.

These layers of wood fibres between the two branches had grown up from each side and met in the middle, so they had no function as translocators of fluids within the tree.  This had been left to the wood on the outside of the branches.

I never realised that.  

You can learn a lot from splitting logs open, or sawing them.  Dissection with a chainsaw can reveal the inner structure of trees.

This supports what I had been taught years ago: that widely forking branches are stronger than narrow forks.

KISSING BRANCHES AND NARROW FORKS

Near ground level this tree divides into an open or wide fork.  It is able to form a strong ridge between the two branches.

Higher up on the left there are two touching stems so close that they have shaped each other into a loving kiss.  

When branches rub against each other like this it is liable to weaken them.  They widen laterally to compensate for the flattening on one side.  They may eventually weld together but more often they won't,  Then one of them may break and the other is left without the support of its partner and will also succumb to forces exerted by the wind.

A kiss of death.

Here is one I prepared earlier, showing how branches which grow close to each other, forming a narrow fork, retain a barrier of bark between them. This prevents them from joining and welding together.  In the space between, fungal organisms can initiate decay leading to breakage.

    

SULPHUR TUFT

Clustered and still growing on old dead wood is this group of Suphut Tuft fungus toadstools (Hypholoma fasciculare)  

They are an even brighter yellow than my camera shows.

These are just the fruiting bodies, the equivalent of flowers for a fungus.  Deep inside, the white mycelial threads are invisible from the outside of the log but are tidily recycling it and at the same time entertaining us with a bit of colour at this misty time of year.

BRANCHING

 

QUEEN WITHOUT A CROWN

A loud, steady, droning buzz in the living room tells you that you have a queen wasp looking for a hibernating place - probably in your curtains.

I like wasps so I am dead against killing them.  They feed their young on cabbage white butterly caterpillars, gooseberry sawfly larvae and other pesky bush meat.  I'm speaking here as a gardener.  

This is the third in our house this autumn.  I never see them come in; they just appear, zooming around trying to find a place to hide.  Eventually this lady landed on the window and was easy to capture with a glass and a piece of card.  After posing for me she was released out of doors.

I'm afraid this is my regular insect-catching glass and so none too clean, which accounts for some blurring in the photos.

Wasp queens are bigger than the workers. They sleep through till the warmer days of spring and then search out a place to start building a nest, made from wasp paper.  This 'paper' is made by scraping wood off old fences or garden furniture and mixing it with saliva.  Queenie only makes a small round nest to raise the first brood of workers.  They then take over the work of nest building and feeding the next brood of babies on caterpillars, while Her Majesty settles down to egg laying.

 

WINTER SONGSTERS

Most birds are fairly quiet during winter, but these two, the robin and the wren continue to defend their territories with their defiant songs.

The robin has a tuneful, delicate and rather plaintive song, whereas the wren's vigorous four-verse recital includes a cheery churring bit towards the end.

Listen to this recording by Jed Deadlock .  There are several others on youtube but I included this one because ends with the 'tik tik tik' alarm call, warning other birds that there is a cat or some other threat about.

And for a wren song here is a video by Paul Dinning .

Many thanks, Jed and Paul.

BARKING UP THE RIGHT TREE

In the November sunshine, ivy and moss make use of craggy tree bark.  

They cling on without harming the tree.

  Their green-ness shows they are still photosynthesising, making use of the sun to manufacture glucose from water and carbon dioxide.  As a by-product they produce oxygen.

Nature still alive and very GREEN !

CHAMPION CAMPION

Still shining out bravely, a few red campion flowers near the shed.

 

LATE BUG

I was just replenishing the leaflet holder at Filnore Woods when I felt something spiky behind my ear.  I scooped it out on to the pile of leaflets and saw this green creature lying on its back.  

It used its back legs to paddle its way across the paper but when I flipped it over it stayed still for me.

With the help of my Field Studies Council Aidgap 'Guide to Shieldbugs' I identified it as a Hawthorn Shieldbug (Acanthasoma haemorrhoidale).  It has fairly sharp 'shoulders' and a green and brown back with a green triangle in the middle.  It's a bit darker at this late season just before hibernating.  There are little black puncture marks all over its back.

In the spring HSBs mate and lay eggs.  The babies are called nymphs and moult up to five times, changing their appearance each time.  They mature in August and tuck in to their favourite food which is hawthorn berries.  They also like other berries like rowan, whitebeam and cotoneaster.

Like all true bugs they don't have jaws to chew; they have a long, sharp 'rostrum' which is like a syringe.  They inject the berry with saliva to soften it up and then suck in the resulting juice.  If you look at the top photo you can see where the rostrum lies against buggy's tummy while not in use.

BREAKING POPLAR

You may have seen this broken limb on the black poplar just over the stream crossing near the entrance.  It has snapped and the top is resting on the ground but it is still attached to the main trunk - just about.

This was reported to South Glos Council in August, September, twice in October and again now in November.  You can see that the remaining stem is supported by a rather thin bit of wood at the top of the remaining trunk, in this photo taken in October.

That branch has now also snapped and is resting on other trees towards the path.  Photo below was taken in November.

Please exercise care.  A number of other trees have shed branches over the last couple of months. Best not to walk through woods or under big trees in very windy weather.

 

STORMY

On today's walk we got caught in the rain and wind but just managed to keep our umbrellas from turning inside out.  It was quite exciting really.  Another one who enjoys a bit of stormy weather is the Mistle Thrush.  

Photo: Dave T on the bird forum

It is also known as the Storm Cock because even in windy weather it will sing from the top of a tall tree as if it is really enjoying a blow.  The song is like a blackbird's but slower and shorter and without the squeaky bit at the end.  A blackbird who has forgotten the words.

Photo of mistletoe berries: discover wildlife

At this time of year mistle thrushes like mistletoe and holly berries best and will defend a bush against all other birds, with a football rattle alarm call.  But they are quite shy of humans.  You may hear the rattling cry but only as the bird flies off from the berry bush it was plundering.

The song thrush has a quite different voice, repeating each phrase two, three or four times.  Listen to the differing songs of Mistle Thrush and Song Thrush on Maurice Baker's helpful youtube video

PATH MAINTENANCE

One of our important jobs is keeping the paths comfortable for visitors to Filnore Woods.

Here are some of our volunteers - Peter, Jim and Will - having cleared and tidied the path near post 5, leading down to the footbridge.  

 When vegetation grows in from the sides, the path gets narrower and more worn.  A wide path tolerates footfall better and doesn't get muddy so quickly.

INTIMATIONS OF SPRING

A foretaste of spring, already.  

 Fresh, green, ferny leaves of Cow Parsley getting ready for the flurry of flowers in April

Vilner Lane Wood was Thornbury Farm

Just discovered fascinating website  Know Your Place  which includes maps dating back to tithe maps of 1841.  

Looking at Thornbury on the 1844 OS map, it shows the site of today's Vilner Lane Wood to be part of Thornbury Farm.

On the map below you can see the former railway station, Rosemount House, the bathing place, which is now The Bathings retirement flats, and Vilner Lane.  I have marked in green the site of Vilner Lane Wood, sister to Filnore Woods.

We shall have to change the name we gave to Vilnore Lane Wood because it is so similar to Filnore Woods and  people find it confusing.

 

YAWNY TAWNIES

    They may look sleepy but at night they are totally alert.  At this time of year, just after dusk, tawny owls are calling to each other.  They don't exactly say "Tuwhit tuwoo", more like 

 "HOO!  Hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo"

 and the typical female reply is a sort of whooshing, whistling shriek, 

usually written as 'keewick'.

Listen to the calls recorded by Steve Hawkeye on youtube

They have a surprisingly large wingspan with fringed feathers that allow them to swoop silently on their mousy prey.

FIRE DAMAGE

Although traces of the fire that caused this damage have long since disappeared, the trees have been permanently weakened.  They keep growing and trying to cover the damaged wood by growing bark over the wound from the sides.  But this open wound is just what some fungi are looking for and rot will eventually set in.  The trees will probably break before they die.

Additionally the unseen damage caused by baking the fine roots, which are all in the top 600mm / 2 feet of the soil, can prove fatal.

Unfortunately the fire starters also spoil the site for wildlife by using dead wood for fuel, which would otherwise have formed a habitat for various invertebrates . . . 

. . . . and they sometimes spoil it for other visitors to the woods by destroying the marker posts and the QR stickers which tell you what to look for.  

Here are the remains of post 6 photographed recently by Lindsay.