Cuckoo at Century Wood
A short video of bird song at the start of May, including a cuckoo.
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The Long Tail in Smallwoods, Spring 2018
An expanded version of my post from January, The Long Tail of Forestry, has just appeared in the Small Woods Association’s “Smallwoods” magazine! (Spring 2018… Read More »The Long Tail in Smallwoods, Spring 2018
Woodland management in France
Earlier this week I revisited a woodland at the foot of the Jura mountains in France that I also photographed in mid February before the snow returned. I was able to take some before and after pictures of small trees marked for felling by the French Office National des Forets, and then felled, and also see how property boundaries are marked.
Extending the Glade
The boundary of the Glade at the centre of the wood has been fixed since I cleared it nine years ago, but yesterday I started… Read More »Extending the Glade
Natural regeneration: Nature’s grassroots rebellion
There’s a rebellion going on in Britain. All around us. The resistance wins some battles and loses others. It has fought us since we first began to clear woodlands and create fields thousands of years ago. Its aim is reforestation with native trees, its method is natural regeneration, and in more and more places it is winning – increasingly with our help.
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Woodlanders Ep7: Off grid forestry
I’ve just watched the beautiful Episode 7 of the Woodlanders series of films. This episode is about Tinker’s Bubble in Somerset and how they do… Read More »Woodlanders Ep7: Off grid forestry
Small woodlands: the Long Tail of forestry
The long tail concept is now commonplace in business and computing. It’s the idea that most subjects are dominated by a very large number of small categories. That the “big hits” are actually outsold by all the niche songs or films or books that sell in ones and twos. Some of this thinking can also be applied to forestry, and how small woodlands can be brought into management.
Red deer in Windsor Great Park
These are some photos I took in Windsor Great Park in July. The park has been royal forest and attached to Windsor Castle itself since the time of William the Conqueror. As well as general pictures of the park, its open spaces and woodland, I took photos of very well established rhododendron (showing just how bad it can get unchecked) and the park’s herd of red deer.
Brown bears at JuraParc
Around the same time I photographed lynx, wild boar and wolves at the La Garenne zoo in the Jura mountains of Switzerland, I also had the opportunity to see the smaller JuraParc with its group of brown bears.
Creating the Glade
The glade at the centre of Century Wood was the first major feature I established after buying the wood almost ten years ago. I photographed the process as I went along and in this post I’ve brought the story together.
When I started there were no open spaces in the wood and just a short ride running from the gate but going nowhere near the wood’s centre. So I pretty much had a blank canvas. I roughed out some ideas for how to lay things out at the same time as completing the purchase in the first winter, but didn’t start work until the autumn – almost a year after first viewing and photographing the wood. In online woodland forums one of the first pieces of advice people now get is to wait a year before doing anything, and back then I knew I certainly wasn’t going to commit to any significant changes until I’d seen things in high summer.