Summer & a Strawberry Moon come to Bel's Wood

Having missed the slow unfold of Spring this year due to my fractured ankle, I have spent lots of time at Bel's Wood enjoying summer emerging. It has been windy but the storms have passed and there has been a good mix of rain and sunshine so that the beck has plenty of water.

Flowers are out in abundance

    Heath bedstraw

Thistle with a white tailed bumblebee

                                   

        The fox gloves are grand this year

    Water forget-me-knot growing in a boggy area

Buttercup

     

Dog rose.                         

Water mint growing in the boggy areas

        

An abundance of honeysuckle with two different varieties

Broom

It's bracken time of year again and not having been up there as much as last year the paths are getting overgrown rapidly. Also, now the gamekeeper is no longer raising pheasants for the autumn shoot, there are no vehicles on the paths. I am hoping to secure the Woodland Creation Grant to fund some bracken clearance this summer. Meanwhile I am using hand tools again while looking wistfully at various machines. So far those I have tried are heavy and I am not sure I will get value out of them. There is one but it hardly fits in the car so isn't practical. I am regarding the wood as my outdoor gym and so working with hand tools will be ok for now.

What I hadn't anticipated was that the areas cleared of gorse would sprout new healthy and strong bracken this summer! I have doubled my bracken problem....

Newly cleared ground with bracken springing up

Never without my bracken basher just now!

I have been working 2 cameras at the wood to try and catch more mustelid footage and other animal shots and have collected some lovely footage this month

Two red deer crossing the beck at night

Mother and baby red deer leaping at night

Mother and very young roe deer crossing beck in the day

Mother and young red deer crossing the beck - the foal looks very young

Badger

Brief glimpse of the otter

I don't know if it's the positions I have chosen for the cameras of whether the wood mice are having a good year but I have picked up a lot of footage of them recently.

Late one evening I sat by the beck and became fascinated by this inch worm working his way along a stick. He seems so purposeful and sure of his direction and progress.

He then arrived at this blade of grass and appears to be making a decision. The camera really struggled to keep him in focus with so many competing features in shot but you can see how he holds on and appears to be testing different directions with his senses.

I found myself marvelling at how this creature knows how to behave relying entirely on instinct. 

Having taken advice I have found that he is an inch worm destined to become a Silver Y moth. 

          

I have spent lots of time at the wood having fires and with friends

Friends crossing the beck

This my new purchase a popcorn pan having its first usage

Gottfried modelling the gin and tonic terrace!

                  

And I enjoyed a night in the woods 

For the full moon - a strawberry moon (14th June 2022)

I was lucky enough to see a badger cub trotting along and a roe deer while this moon was rising. It was nearly 11pm and I had no need for a torch with these long days.

As the moon rose it turned a brilliant white. 

Just as I was changing to get into the hammock for the night, two deer started to bark at each other very close to me. Nothing came of it and I was able to settle down to sleep about 1am. 

It was a magical evening.