We have now switched over to British Summer Time but the weather is still decidedly ‘wintery’.  We have experienced the coldest March in decades, and the coldest end to March in over a hundred years.  Indeed, March has been colder than the preceding winter months. A blackthorn winter if there ever was.  The impact of this weather on wildlife could be far reaching. Bird populations are likely to suffer – migratory birds are scarce (such as the swallow) and for those that do arrive, there is little food .  There are few insects, beetles, slugs, worms or caterpillars.  The lack of food will also affect resident birds, such as robin and blackbird.   Barn owls are particularly affected by extended winter periods – as they cannot find prey. The breeding season for most birds will probably be reduced , only one brood of young will be possible in a truncated Spring and Summer period. Sea birds have not escaped unscathed - due to storms at sea, there have been increased mortalities of  birds, such as puffins. Read more...

The twin challenges of modern life are: keeping warm in winter and reducing your carbon emissions - one way of achieving both is to buy a woodland and install a wood burning stove at home!   Having owned a woodland for many years, I recently decided the time had come to for me to switch our heating to log burning, so I set about asking friends and researching which stoves were best and how it would all work. You will find that asking about heating is one of those secret conversation topics (a bit like asking a group of men what women really want) that gets everyone going and you can pick up lots of practical advice this way - about stoves, not women. In preparing for our stove my first action was to get the chimney swept (cost £50) and get a certificate from the sweep so that the installers would be sure that it was safe and had a good upward draught. Read more...

Tree surgeons are an essential part of modern life - they make overhanging trees safe, they protect our buildings and they allow us to have a view from our houses and offices. But tree surgery can permanently damage a beloved tree and it can also cost a lot of money - so it's worth thinking about who you get to cut your trees. There's also a big difference between tree works in town where permissions are likely to be needed and for clearing overhanging branches beside a woodland, where the main danger will be traffic and you rarely need formal permissions. Woodlands.co.uk has to undertake a lot of tree surgery near to tracks, roads and footpaths: we take safety very seriously, only employing qualified tree surgeons and tree services companies. Read more...

For reasons that are not clear even to me, I have long harboured a desire to learn how to build dry stone walls. So when the opportunity presented itself to get training, and work with a group to take down and rebuild a dry stone wall, I jumped at the chance.  The training was part of a package offered by the National Trust as a “Working Holiday.” The course started with dinner on Monday evening, followed by three days of training and practice. Accommodation was in a farmhouse owned by the National Trust,  converted into a bunkhouse with two dormitories, just outside Betws-y-Coed in Snowdonia, The holiday included accommodation for three nights in the National Trust bunkhouse, all meals, transport between the bunkhouse and the work-site, and training/supervision by two experienced dry stone wallers. All of this for just £90! Costs are kept low by the accommodation being in dormitories, and because everyone attending has to take a turn at cooking one of the evening meals. This was made easy for us: our holiday leader, Sue, had prepared the menus, Read more...

Watching birds in woodland can be very rewarding but, at the same time, very frustrating! The old adage "can't see the wood for the trees" certainly comes in to play. You can be surrounded by bird song yet not see a single one. Birdwatchers then have to rely on the one piece of equipment they forget all about – their ears!  Knowing your bird songs and calls is vital as trying to track a bird using binoculars as it flits though thick cover can be almost impossible. Knowing what to expect is also useful. While there are some birds like Chaffinch that occur in all woodlands, Read more...

‘Who or what are Hyperion, Helios and Icarus ?’  one might ask.  Well, casting aside references to classical mythology, Hyperion, Helios and Icarus are trees.  In fact, they are very large trees.  Hyperion is the tallest known tree.   It is a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) that is 379 feet tall, probably 700 to 800 years old - growing in Northern California.  Helios and Icarus are the second and third tallest trees.  General Sherman, a giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) is said to be the largest tree on Earth by volume. So are these facts collected just for entry in the Guiness Book of Records ?  Well no, they are also of great interest to the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive.   This organisation has been collecting samples from dozens of America’s oldest and largest redwoods and sequoias. Read more...

The growing and coppicing of willow involves planting fast growing varieties that give significant quantities of biomass / biofuel (usually, after a three year cycle / period of growth).  Willow is particularly effective in producing biomass – giving up to 15 or more tonnes of oven-dried material per hectare per year, with relatively small inputs of labour, fertiliser etc.  It can be grown on soil that is not suitable for arable or pasture. The woody material or biomass produced can (with appropriate treatment) be used as a furnace material.  Indeed, this is the case in Cookstown in Northern Ireland.  Here, locally growing willow biomass is being used to save on heating costs of the swimming pool – after the installation of a wood fired burner (replacing oil).  The switch from oil to biomass saves many thousands of pounds on an annual basis. Read more...