Monday 13 April 2009

Tree planting and more butterflies

Everything is getting very green in the woods now, the wayleave looks different even since three days ago
We got some more pictures of the "mystery tree", suggestions so far are purging buckthorn or crab apple. Comments welcome:
We did a bit of tree planting today. I know it's a bit late in the year to be doing this, but we were relocating tiny trees from places where they will never make it, like the middle of a path, so if they don't make it in their new places then there's nothing lost. We brought a few Hawthorn and Ash back from Sean and Sarah's wood, where they have thousands of them self-seeding, and we added some birch and elder from Sweep Wood. Rather than using the plastic tree guards we have, we tried making some out of brash and dead bracken:
It'll be interesting to see how effective they are against rabbits.

There were dozens of birds around in the cant we cut a year ago, more than I remember at this time last year. I wonder if this is because a year ago we'd only just finished felling there, so they hadn't claimed any territory. This year, it is full of pheasants:

Robins
and many more.

OK, on to butterflies. These were in evidence again in the wildlife corridor we created last winter, affirming the effectiveness of the plan. Peacocks were around:
and for the first time I got a good picture of a Comma, again 100m inside the wood, where we've never seen them before:
A quick update on the pond - it seriously needs digging out again, as the boar have trampled it a lot, but stuff is still growing in it regardless:

And finally, in Sweep Wood we saw more boar digging, and some droppings:
That's all for now, there's a week of work ahead, and then my parents and brother and his family are visiting for a week.

Mike

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