Autumn Colours and Wildlife

I blogged 'Autumn is here' a few weeks ago. During October changes have come rapidly. The bracken has begun to glow orange.  








  






After heavy rainfall the road was flooded as the leaves had blocked the drain; it didn't take long to clear. I shall keep working on these as we come into winter.






Fungi are flowering on trees and from the ground and the air is thick with their smell.


      






There have been some sparklingly sunny days where the colours have glowed. 





I am still trying to photograph one of my favourite oaks (Gandalf) - impossible to capture these magnificent specimens with a camera but lovely to spend time with them.










The full moon with clear skies at night give a lovely setting to see the deer and there has been lots of badger and fox activity.










As the rutting season starts, for first time I have seen a red stag coming down onto the wood. 





I have tried again putting a camera up a tree to capture footage of birds. Last time I had hundreds of videos of bees! This time has been more successful.

Blue tit on the left of the screen:


Nuthatch leaving the tree





A still from a fleeting glimpse of a finch dropping down


Here is the video


There is still a lot of green around still as I look across the valley


While some trees along the beck are now completely bare


The temperatures have dropped this week - starting the week at 16ºc and ending the week at 11ºc during the day so I expect things to move on rapidly. I'll keep trying camera positions and get the video working to catch the deer rut now I know the males have come down from the upper areas of the valley. As I come to the end of my first year getting to know the wood (I purchased it in December 2020 and knew it would be mine about a year ago so started visiting more often), I am still finding new delights when I visit. I have favourite spots and am more able to visualise the area turned into a woodland. There is a lot happening in the background to move things forward - the planning permission application for vehicle access is being considered, communication with the Forestry Commission to discuss the planting plan and the development of the bid for a the Woodland Creation Grant is in hand. Bringing more friends to visit remains a joy as I see the wood through their eyes and appreciate once again what a pleasure it is to create something long term for the future.











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bel's Wood becomes a wood

Image
Today, Friday 26th January 2024 is a good day.  The planters finished the task of planting 4,200 trees. The last couple of weeks has presented considerable challenges with snow, rain, wind and storms. They were unable to get to the wood this week until today when they still had to overcome some challenging road conditions in Ambleside. Thankfully the days are slightly longer and so they were able to get the final 700 trees into the ground and to protect them with tree guards.                          These are the recycled guards and take a bit longer to wrap around each tree and stake as they have less spring than the new ones. I helped out with a dozen to help get them over the finish line! The entrance is part of zone 1 & has been the final zone to be planted:-   No time to stand an admire the handy work though! Each of the trees needs a mulch mat and these were delivered earlier this week.        They are being stored outdoors and so will get wet which may mean they start to br
Read more

Christmas and 4,250 trees are ready to be planted

Image
All of the trees have arrived and are safely stored at the wood ready for planting on 28th/ 29th December 2023. The weather has presented challenges this year and I have gained a small insight into the world of nurseries and the risks they juggle throughout the year. The list of trees that I wanted to plant was shared with nurseries over a year ago. There was some to-ing and fro-ing at that point as some of the trees I wanted were not available (black poplar for example). Having secured a grant from the Forestry Commission I need to match the plan they approved as closely as possible and so where a species of tree wasn't available I substituted a tree from the list they have agreed that was a similar size. Having flexed the plan I then found at the point of the order being prepared that some trees were not been available this season or were scarce ie not available in the volume I wanted and/ or expensive and often not available from the nursery I planned to use. These were the tree
Read more

Winter arrives and all systems are go

Image
The plan had been to plant the 4,200 trees in November 2023 but the warm wet weather meant that the trees did no go dormant as anticipated and nurseries did not lift them from the ground. The climate appears to be changing and compressing the season for planting. I received a message on 1st December, the first day of winter, that the trees are now being lifted but ironically the ground was now too hard for planting to go ahead! I took this photograph on 3rd December in Kendal when the roads were impassable and I was happy to stay at home. Thankfully the sun appeared and the roads were gritted (mostly) and with care I made it to the wood with friends to work on those final wood piles that needed clearing.  It was wonderful seeing the wood with fresh, deep, powder snow and noticing the changes in such a short time. Not a leaf remained on the branches. The hawthorn berries had all dropped from the branches Some of the paths were blocked as the weight of the snow had made the gorse collaps
Read more