I arrived yesterday before 8am to a dark and quiet wood. Birdsong was surprisingly scarce at first. The other day I  discovered my camera has wifi connectivity. I knew it had, but never explored it’s usefulness but I found an app for my smartphone that allows me to remotely view and control the camera. I set up the camera on a tripod, aimed at the blackbird’s nest I found last week, behind my logshed. I thought by now the eggs might have hatched (no she’s still sitting on them) and hoped to capture some close-ups of her returning to feed them. It was a failed idea, you need to be fairly close-by for the devices to communicate properly. It does have potential though for catching birds on the feeders. I had my usual walkabout, the Great Tits nesting in the tree hollow have gone. Close by, a Roe deer doe was disturbed by my presence. She looked at me then hid for a while behind some trees before elegantly bounding off.

I wanted to continue with the shelter rebuild. The new roof leaks like mad, partly due to it not having enough slope on it. I spent half the day lowering the back and tying in upright log supports. A quick test with the watering can looked promising but there were still one of two leaks. The panels are old ones and have a few holes which I thought I had patched o.k. but still a bit of fine tuning to do. I took down the old support poles which has opened it up now. Still got the sides to deal with but this is how it’s looking so far.

I have a massive pile of logs to chop and stack for seasoning from the Winter’s felling and time is flying by, so I spent an hour at this tiring but satisfying work. The lower pile is the new one. As you can see there’s an art to stacking, building it well so it doesn’t collapse.

I’ll leave you with a few photos from my walkabout. The vegetation growth is phenomenal at the moment and soon I will need to do some slashing and pulling of nettles and brambles to keep my pathways clear.

New second year growth on a coppiced hazel.

This is the same hazel in full frame. It grew around two metres in one year. Felling some big sycamores around the copse payed off and the area is flooded with light now. I can take the deer netting down later in the year.

This area near my campsite is shaping up nicely. A donated hazel plant in the foreground. Behind it a couple of young silver birch given to me as saplings and planted three years ago are healthy and clearing the brambles here has encouraged the ferns to grow massively.

Finally I had to include this shot because the flower is so simple and pretty and the small fly adds a sense of scale. It’s Herb Robert and is growing profusely amongst the stone chippings on the ride. This is what Googling it says about it’s medicinal properties. Herb Robert is used for diarrhea; to improve functioning of the liver and gallbladder; to reduce swelling (inflammation) of the kidney, bladder, and gallbladder; and to prevent the formation of stones in the kidney, bladder or gallbladder. Some people use Herb Robert as a mouthwash or gargle. The fresh leaves are chewed to relieve soremouth and throat.