You can usually jog round your woodland but this doesn't give you all the exercise you might want, so you could create a trail with different exercises at each stop. These are popular in woodlands in Switzerland, France and Germany. At each stop you might do pull ups on a bar, or balance along a stabilised log or jump along a set of steps at different heights. At first such outdoor gymnastics might seem a like a childish pursuit more suited to the playground than a woodland, but there's a lot more to these fitness trails than you'd think. People take them very seriously and if you think of how much people pay to go to their gyms, this is like a giant free outdoor gym. People using these exercise trails say they like doing their exercises in harmony with nature. Read more...

When I told family and friends that I had bought 4.5 acres of woodland in North Devon many of them expressed an interest is seeing it. In August, I therefore arranged an 'open day'. I also invited along the owners of neighbouring areas of woodland. Guests were encouraged to bring along something to sit on and their own picnics to supplement the barbecue and drinks which I had organised. Shelter was provided by my shed, a couple of gazebos and a tipi. And that other essential, a toilet tent, contained an earth closet. Read more...

We recently had an email from Hannah Wise at the Natural History Museum.  She felt that as our blog deals with many aspects of the British countryside that we might like their short films / videos featuring Natural History Museum botanist Dr. Fred Rumsey. Each film is only a few minutes long and Dr.Rumsey talks about some seasonal flowers and plants that you can discover out and about in the UK. The latest films are Summer Walk and The bee orchid.  In the summer walk, Dr. Rumsey discusses coastal plants and their adaptations as found at West Wittering Beach in West Sussex. Read more...

Cooking sausages on a campfire is quite easy but what about when the children want to eat something different in the woodland? You can do soups, baked potatoes, beans, lots of fried food - but can you cook pizza? My friend Johnny decided to try it and here's what he did for his "woodland pizza". First of all he had thought ahead and brought the ingredients and the equipment. For ingredients he wasn't content with a frozen pizza but wanted to cook it properly so he brought a dough for the base, tomato sauce, and toppings of anchovies, olives, cheese and capers. As to equipment, he had brought down to the woodland a round pizza stone as a base, a shiny steel circular tray and some silver foil. Read more...

Most species of butterfly produce one batch of eggs each year - like the gatekeeper butterfly.   However, some species can produce two sets of eggs a year.  Whether or not two sets of eggs are produced seems to be connected to or dependent upon the late winter / early spring mean (average) temperature. If it is 'warm' then some species of butterfly can start flying and reproducing earlier in the year.   The earlier production of the first brood of eggs makes the production of a second brood more likely.  Work on this has been conducted by Angus Westgarth Smith at Brunel University (using data from the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme - co-ordinated from CEH). Read more...

Four woodlands in the South West have won recognition at this year’s RFS Awards in the Small Woodlands category, sponsored by Woodlands.co.uk. The first prize went to William Sowerby, owner of Coombeshead, Launceston, Cornwall. Mr Sowerby planted a three and a half acre wood on a hill crest, restoring mature trees, saving old trees from neglect, coppicing, and even planting 300 yards of mixed hedge – which now provides berries and nests to birds, while sheets of corrugated iron on the ground encourage worms and other species. Read more...