Bel's Wood

The beauty of mature trees is that they house a host of flora and fauna. I have placed cameras up various trees trying to capture birds so that I can learn who lives in Bel’s Wood.  Over time I have collected some lovely footage of birds and mammals and I thought I would bring together these stills and videos in one place. I've captured 10 birds (including a mystery one) and 3 mammals (I do have footage of a magpie somewhere so the number is 11 - just can't find it in my filing system!) I choose a flat surface in the hope that it will attract birds to land and be in focus for the camera to capture. I have selected the best footage here. Tawny owl This is still my favourite footage which has its own dedicated blog https://belswood20.blogspot.com/2022/07/tawny-owl-succesful-hunting-morning.html. I keep putting the camera back in this tree hoping to pick up more footage but apart from this two hour period no owl has returned - yet. Tree creeper Nuthatch Al...

I have worried about the bracken at all stages of knowing this land over the last two years. I remember my first visit, when I just had to launch myself through head high bracken to try and get a sense of the land. I kept the paths and some areas open well in the first year (2021)  with the help of friends.  Also  the game keeper who ran the pheasant shoot kept the paths open that he needed and was incredibly helpful in clearing areas I knew I would want to plant on.  This year I had less success, losing time when the bracken first appeared due to my broken ankle.  Also new bracken appeared in areas which had been engulfed with gorse and so doubled the hectarage with bracken on it \   This whole area was gorse before with a few hidden trees In the long term bracken is suppressed by having a canopy over the ground excluding light which the photograph of the beck illustrates well. So the aim is to get that canopy up successfully.  With the gra...