My best friend yesterday. The woods were alive with small birds when I arrived. Singing and calling out looking for a mate or announcing their territory. I truly love this little bird, it hangs around my work and rest area. Comes to see me when I arrive, always exploring where I am working looking for tit-bits. There’s more to it than just taking advantage of a free meal though. Experts say they have learned to follow large mammals because they disturb the ground and reveal invertebrates. Why don’t other birds do that too? There’s something special about Robins. After shifting a load of heavy logs, I sat exhausted for a rest. It landed on a nearby branch and just sat with me for quarter of an hour, as if to keep me company. Not singing this time but just chatting quietly and resting with me. I wish I could speak “Robin”. Special occasions these.
It was to be another day of hard work cutting up the remaining felled trees and wheel-barrowing them away to stack. I’m conscious of time moving on now. Recent lockdown robbed me of valuable working time at the woods. The area is filling up with Wood Anemones and Bluebells and walking around shifting logs tramples them down, plus where the felled tree trunks are lying is preventing them from emerging. I have another day’s work to complete it, then I can leave it to do it’s own thing without disturbance. It was really hard work but there is pleasure in it. I feel more alive when lugging heavy pieces around somehow.
Much has changed in the week since my last visit and coincidentally we have just reached the Spring Equinox when the length of night and day is the same. It seems like the tap of life has been switched on in the woods too. It’s the start of good things to come in more ways than one. Last year at this time, we entered the first Covid lockdown and I missed out on much of the Spring loveliness at the woods. I didn’t do any camping either. As the second wave of Covid retreats and vaccines are rolling out at an amazing rate in this country, I feel like this year will be a much better one for enjoying my woods and being able to socialise again. It’s been a hard slog, it’s not over yet and probably will start peaking again later in the year, but for the meantime, let’s make the most of it. Camping is on my definite “To do” list this year.
Wood Anemones starting to flower. They will carpet my woods for a few weeks, taking advantage of the light before the canopy closes again. A few years ago I dug up a few small clumps of Wild Garlic and replanted them along the ride edge in the Northern compartment. This is where I am doing the felling. It’s an area of mainly sycamore, planted in the 1960s and needing thinning. Ground cover there is limited, mostly Bluebells and Anemones in Spring, then the ferns and of course brambles. So I am trying to increase diversity with a little bit of transplanting from further down the woods where there is lots of variety. The garlic is one of my successes and I now have some healthy, thriving clumps which are slowly spreading.
Not much more to tell so I’ll just leave you with another photo of my best woodland pal. Standing on my mini fireplace about a metre from where I sit.
