Walking the wood……lots to learn!

As part of my application for a Countryside Stewardship Grant I have produced a draft woodland management plan. This sounds very grand but is simply a way of thinking through and formally capturing a fairly detailed set of objectives for the wood over say the next 10 – 20 years. To assist with this there is a very good software package available on the Forestry Commission web site. This leads you step by step through each of the stages that are necessary to organise your thoughts into a coherent document.  What the process reveals is that you have to be very thoughtful about what you seek to achieve in the wood and think through the consequences of the steps that will be necessary. Anything to do with woodlands takes place over time spans of many years and so a commitment to take down a mature tree needs very serious consideration. The sobering thought is that whatever you plan to achieve it is unlikely that you will see the mature results in your lifetime so you are really planning for the next generation.

Having said all that there are shorter timescale activities that can become a part of the plan such as coppicing hazel and pollarding ash, sycamore or even hornbeam. These have shorter cycles of say less than 10 years from start to harvest. But I was chatting to someone who has been in charge of coppicing at an estate and is only now after the third cycle thinking that the coppice is beginning to mature into a productive site. So that’s three lots of seven years – 21 years for a hazel coppice to reach its maturity and re-enter the productive phase.

As part of the management plan an expert in the flora and fauna for the area visited the woodland this week and spent an hour and a half walking the wood and commenting on what I had planned and making some very helpful suggestions. It is always refreshing to have an expert offer advice before you leap into action. as mentioned earlier some of the decisions have real consequences which cannot be easily undone .

In one part of the wood there are several clumps of rather scruffy looking tress which I had previously struggled to identify but had eventually determined were goat willow. These I decided were of little use in a woodland intended for growing timber and wood products. However during the visit they were described as being very impressive examples of mature goat willow and an important habitat and food source for the increasingly rare Purple Emperor pictured above. We agreed that a sensible change to the management plan would be to leave a small copse of these trees standing to maintain the opportunity for these beautiful insects to breed and hopefully recover their numbers.This is a priceless piece of information that has enhanced the management plan and ensured that my artificial interventions have as light a footprint as possible.

It was impressive to listen as the visitor deduced the history of the wood simply from the vegetation covering the woodland floor.  The plant pictured below is growing across a large part of Pop’s Wood but not everywhere.

This is Dog’s Mercury and the Wildlife Trust site has the following description….”Dog’s Mercury has spear-shaped, toothed, fresh green leaves carried on upright stems. It produces a foul and rotten smell and bears clusters of small, greenish flowers in spring.”

It is also a very reliable indicator of ancient woodland sites and explains why the expert was able to say that parts of the woodland were a lot younger than the rest due to its absence across the whole wood. Bluebells fall into a similar category and also indicate ancient woodland activity.

Ancient woodlands are woodlands that have existed since 1600AD in England and Wales and 1750AD in Scotland. Artificial planting was uncommon before these points in time.
Ancient woods are our richest land-based habitat for wildlife. They are home to more threatened species than any other, and some may even be remnants of the original wildwood that covered the UK after the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago. Yet today, ancient woodland covers only around 2% of the UK’s land area.

Quite a responsibility when I think through my management plan and how best to develop its future for the next generations and beyond. Best keep that chain saw unused and reflect for a little bit more before starting. More next time…….