Heaps of moles

We know that someone's awake.

 

 

Moles seem to be very active in the welcome area just inside the main entrance to Filnore Woods.

Bad news if you're a worm, but it's good to have evidence of some mammalian wildlife at Filnore.

 

 

According to BBC Nature, where I found the picture, they can create up to 20m of tunnel in a day!

 

Signs of spring - white dead-nettle

In flower now at Filnore.  Hurry, hurry, hurry!

 

 

Perhaps this is not so much a sign of spring as a sign that we are having a mild winter.  The flower books tell me that it normally flowers from May till December, or March till November, depending which book you read.  Either way it should not be blooming in January and February - but it is. 

 

The white deadnettle leaves look like stinging nettle leaves but they are quite stingless, hence the name deadnettle.  But once it produces its rings of white snapdragon-like flowers there is no mistaking it for a stinger.

 

   Stinging nettle flowers are clusters of long green catkins which appear in summer, June to August.

 

If you're not sure which plant is which you can always touch them and you'll soon know if it's a stinger.

Coppicing

 

Steve and Derek harvesting poles

 

What is coppicing ?

 

Roger and Simon with saws and loppers

 

The idea is to harvest a crop of wood, small diameter poles, every ten years or so.  Most broadleaved trees (not conifers) will grow again if cut nearly to the ground (coppiced) so you get a continuous production of poles.  One of the most productive is hazel.

 

 Simon and Roger in the plantation in pylon field

 

A different bit of the woodland is coppiced each year and the stools (roots) are left to re-grow

 

What is the wood used for ?

The poles can be used to make fences, hurdles, beansticks, plant stakes and supports, tent pegs, besoms (witches' brooms), furniture, baskets and much more.

  

bean sticks                                                 hedging stakes

 

a laid hedge

 

 a hazel hurdle just being finished

twiggy peasticks

 

Why re-introduce coppicing ?

Many woodlands were managed in this way until the second world war. Since then many have been left unmanaged and have become less varied habitats for wildlife. To bring these woodlands back into production and to increase the numbers of primroses, bluebells, butterflies, nightingales and dormice, it is often a good idea to start coppicing again. After 50 years the trees will have grown too big to be much use except as firewood or barbecue charcoal.



Bird survey 2013

Here is Rob Collis's Filnore Woods bird survey for 2013.

 

We have 4 new species compared to 2012: 

Pied Wagtail, Little Owl,Lesser Whitethroat, and Stock Dove,

 

 

  . . . . while seven of those recorded in 2012 (see blog post dated 28/03/2012) were not noted in 2013, namely Coal Tit, Grey Heron, Mallard, Yellowhammer, Swallow, Whitethroat and Mistle Thrush. 

 

   

By looking at the relative numbers and which months they occur in you can see, for example, that Fieldfares and Redwings are winter visitors, Chiffchaffs are summer visitors and Blue Tits are there all the year round.

 

Many thanks to Rob for his continuing efforts.

 

Easier access for walkers

Winding up through the trees from post 11, the path has now been given it's first dressing of woodchip.

 

We have had lots of positive feedback from walkers, especially dog-walkers, about how much easier it is to use the path now. 

This, of course encourages the volunteers to keep up their good work.

 

 

We have improved the camber of the path well past post 9. 

Perhaps we need a few more steps now leading up through the blackthorn towards post 8.

 

We can always use more volunteers.

  

Signs of spring - hazel flowers

Hazel bushes are at their most beautiful at the moment, cloaked in golden catkins

 

 

The spreading branches contrast with the vertically hanging catkins.

The catkins are the male flowers producing clouds of golden pollen.  When pollen lands on female flowers, the hazel nuts begin to grow.  If you look carefully you can see the tiny red stars which are the female flowers, growing tight against the twig.

 

 

 And on some bushes you can still see traces of last year's nuts

Stumped by a puffball.

Puffballs are fungi that spread their spores by puffing them into the air.  When something touches the outer casing a cloud of minute spores squirts out like a puff of smoke.  This happened when we just gently touched these Stump Puffballs (Lycoperdon pyriforme).  They grow on rotten stumps and logs.

 

 

 They are club-shaped with a little hole on the top for the puff of spores to come out.  Simon found them near post 17.