It was a crystal clear, inky black sky when I left home at 6.30am. A thin sliver of a waning moon hung low and I was looking forward to meeting a pal who was going to help me with some tree felling.  I leave this early to get a head start on the commuter traffic and also so that I get a full day at the woods. We met at the gate to the woods and headed up the rides to my four acre plot.

The photos above give you an idea of the type of trees I am felling. It makes up about a third of my whole woods and is a plantation of sycamore that is about fifty plus years old and standing around 20 metres tall . They were planted in lines very close together in order to draw them up to the light, to make tall straight trunks for timber production. Since then they have been neglected for several decades. Close competition for light and moisture, damage from grey squirrels and other factors means that they are now a mixed bunch of mostly poor specimens.

These woods have ancient woodland history, they existed long before man felled and replanted and part of my plan is to start restoring this area towards a more semi-natural condition. Because of my age, I don’t have many years to work at it and know that all I can do is to make a start on the process by thinning out many of the sickly, misshapen ones, to allow more light and nutrition available for the better examples. Opening a few areas by heavier thinning also gives me the opportunity to replant with a more diverse selection.

We started with a leisurely walkabout (no sign of Bertie the friendly robin still) and a search for the knife I lost a few weeks ago. My mate found it in the leafy floor in the hazel copse. I was elated. I hate losing things. Then we set-to with the chainsaw. We dropped four small to medium sized ones and cut then into four foot lengths for stacking. My main aim is to get a good few down before Spring and bird nesting season. I can then spend time in summer clearing the rest away.

We took a break to visit one of my neighbour’s plot to see the new clearing he has made. I am impressed with what he has achieved working on his own and in such a short time. This area will flourish with new ground cover, regenerating saplings, bird and insect life and whatever he decides to plant. I shall be including this area in my Woodland Trust fixed point photography project.

After lunch we had another round of felling and took four more down and cut those to length. It was a satisfying day and am grateful for the help given. My pal headed off home and left me for an end of day photo session. I was pleased to see some small bee activity at the nest box, indicating that they are still occupying it and thriving. I’ll leave you with a few wintry photos.

A wild and windy day at the woods yesterday. No sign of Bertie when I arrived or throughout the day. I’m hoping he’s just busy somewhere else. I wanted to do some felling but the tall lanky trees were blowing about all over the place making it a dangerous and almost impossible option. I did take a small one down, then gave up on the idea and spent most of the morning clearing brash and logging up the ones I had felled in December which I’d just left where they fell. I decided to cut them into four foot lengths and start stacking them to form a “cord” which is a measurement of four feet long logs stacked four feet high and eight feet wide. Green logs, being full of water, are very heavy and by the end of the morning I was shattered, having had to drag or carry them through the woods to where I stacked them. This is how it looks so far. Not very impressive but to get to this point involves a lot of manual work. I count about thirty logs here. They are bigger than they look. The larger ones had to be dragged one at a time, the smaller ones could be carried in twos but it still accounts for about twenty trips of 40-50 metres each time, often through tangled bramble.

At this point one of my neighbours, Steve arrived which was a welcome break. We had a walk around and a good chat about nature and our woods. At one point he commented that he could hear small bells, like those used on birds of prey and falconry. My old ears couldn’t hear them but shortly after we spotted another neighbour who was flying his Harris Hawk around the woods. I met him later and he told me his bird had caught a rat which bit the bird’s foot, causing massive swelling. As part of it’s recuperation, he wanted to exercise it, giving it the opportunity to land on branches of differing diameters.

A buzzard caught my attention with it’s mewing call. It was flying low over my woods and I was hoping it might land but no. After lunch I did a few small jobs and took some photos. Not much of interest to record. My next door neighbours have just felled four large trees on the corner of their plot which is opposite the hazel corner of mine. Taking advantage of the extra light where the two tracks join is a good idea. It will be interesting to see how this small area responds to the extra light in the next few years. This is how it looks now. They have some hard work to do to clear it up yet.

Steve had invited me to see what he’s been doing at his woods. He only started felling a year ago and had no previous experience so I was well impressed with what he’s achieved. He took me to an area in the middle which had been a very dark place. I was stunned and amazed at the transformation. He has taken down numerous huge trees to create a very large open area which will become an nice sunny glade. All around the edges were large piles of brash teaming with small birds. They seem to love this type of environment. Another area which will be interesting to see how it develops with new growth and wildlife activity. He gave me permission to revisit and include as one of my Woodland Trust fixed position photography sites. I hope to show you how it progresses over the next few years. We spotted a hare running around, then a Sparrowhawk flying fast not far away. I love seeing animal and bird life around us. It brings the woods to life.

It was time to leave. I took a few photos in my hazel coppice and in the foreground, it shows the regrowth of three stools that were cut right back two years ago. Now standing about three metres high. Very satisfying.

Happy New Year to everyone and it’s that time when we become a little retrospective. To be honest, the New Year thing washes over me these days. One year just rolls into another doesn’t it? You don’t need a special date to make plans and resolutions, you can start and re-organise your life any time you like and those annual resolutions will most likely fall by the wayside just as they do every year. But it’s not a bad idea to reflect on the last year and make some plans for the new one. If you have nothing to aim at, then how can you hope to hit the target?

I’ve just had a quick look back at my posts last year and it brought back so many good feelings from my visits to the woods. Projects I completed, family and friends visiting, cooking over a camp fire, observations of nature and making friends with a robin. To list a few successful projects – rebuilding the composting toilet walls, helping a pal build a shavehorse, making a woodland rustic chair, building a pond and renewing my felling licence. Getting and award for my blog was an unexpected treat.

Wildlife highlights were discovering a colony of feral honey bees in the owl nest box, learning about fungi identification, butterflies and the Tawny Owl bathing in my pond.

Camping trips were below expectations, I only managed to fit in one. I hope to get a few more in this year and hopefully try my hand at some winter or early spring camping. It’s such a lovely experience to wake up early and see the woods at that time of day, listen to the dawn chorus, light a fire and cook breakfast. It’s a feeling of freedom and truly being alive.

I know a few of my friends suffer with mental health issue, anxiety, stress, depression and I do too at times. It’s a common symptom of our modern way of living. We are normally surrounded by concrete, plastic, traffic and the constant brainwashing of media on our tv and phones. To spend time in the woods either with friends or on our own is truly a healing experience and I cannot recommend it too much. You don’t need to own your own woods to benefit from nature. Just get out there, take a flask of tea or coffee and find a nice quite spot in the woods, by a lake or river, on the moors or the beach and just sit, watch, listen and take in the beauty of it all. It’s where we come from and it’s where we truly belong. Thanks to all of you for taking time to read my ramblings and for the kind feedback many of you have given me. Hope this year is a good one for you.

It was the morning of New Year’s Eve. A cold and clear morning with lots of jobs planned. As I opened the main gate I heard the distinct noisy sound of a flock of geese, flying in formation high above the woods. It’s a sound I love. It evokes feelings of freedom and the wholesomeness of nature and for a fleeting moment, all seems well in the world.

I stepped out of the car looking for “Bertie” the robin. It was a while before a robin appeared but it didn’t attempt to take the food from my hand. Surely he hasn’t forgotten me already?  It wasn’t him but soon he arrived too. If you remember, the children at my daughter’s workplace helped me name him. I wanted to try to capture some video of him feeding off my hand so she could show them. I set the camera up and using an app on my phone, was able to operate the camera remotely. Here’s a short film I compiled for them.

After a nice long walkabout, I set-to brushcutting some areas of bramble that had grown rampant and were choking some young hazel trees I planted a few years ago. I’m not entirely happy doing it as the bramble provides safe habitats for all manner of life. It’s cover from predators for small animals and birds and it’s a food source for insects. It has to be kept in check though. You can see the before and after photos and how much it had invaded the woodland floor.

Lunch was a sardine sarnie (that alliteration looks good written doesn’t it?)  A small flock of long tailed tits had descended and were foraging in the understorey. They must be one of the cutest British birds and are a joy to watch. Bertie kept me company eating some seeds I had put on a stump at the side of my chair. This odd photo is a result of his head turning quickly and a slow shutter speed. I’d like to say it was done intentionally for artistic purposes but that would be a lie.

My wife gave me a robin type nest box as one of my Christmas gifts, so I wanted to set that up somewhere suitable. They like a low position, under thick scrub where they are safe from predators. I picked a position under some beech trees at the end of a brash hedge I created some years ago. I made a sort of framework of sticks around it to support a pile of the brambles I had cut back, leaving just a small entrance to the side. It looks pretty well hidden so I’m hoping Mr and Mrs Bertie might take up residence in Spring.

A final word just to set the record straight. In my last post I stated that it was the Winter Solstice on the 21st Dec. A few observant folks corrected me to say I was a day early. In fact the actual time of the Solstice was around 4.30 am on the 22nd. In the grand scale of time and the universe I reckon it makes no difference to anything but just in case you felt you had missed the boat with your pagan celebrations, my apologies.

It’s a New Year now, though I reckon that is wrong too because surely the actual new year starts a second after the Solstice? Anyway to all my friends and readers, I hope the coming year will be a good one for you. It certainly seems significant with a new British government and Brexit looming and the written year – 2020 a pleasing visual appeal. All the best.