General outlook


Wurthymp Wood is a 17 acre / 6.9 hectare plot, divested from a mixed woodland 30 acre farmland project planted by others in 2006.

From 2014 it has stood as a stand-alone woodland conservation project in a wider landscape mosaic.
The woodland is privately owned and funded and is run on a break-even sustainable basis, resources are shared with the Meadowcopse Orchard Project a few miles to the north.

The primary objectives are mixed:-
a, Wildlife habitat conservation (trees, grassland and ponds).
b, Rotational coppice woodland management (thinning, regeneration, rural craft materials and firewood).
c, Selective long-term forestry tree management (coppice with selected standard trees left long-term).
d, Community, education & research engagement, (the promotion and understanding of wildlife & sustainable conservation in a wider landscape context).

Tuesday 26 May 2020

May 2020

A rather productive end to April and beginning of May.
A couple of productive sessions with the kiln from last year's coppice cutting in the woods.
The charcoal selling as fast as it gets weighed and bagged.


The rather challenging times we are in have not had too severe an impact on the woodland front.
The excellent Smallwoods organisation at Ironbridge / Coalbrookdale have done quite a bit of groundwork around woodland working (including DEFRA clarification), as well as Forestry organisations Confor and RFS.

The first weekend saw a minor amount of a few strange gateway incursions away from the footpath, but I'm guessing these were more distant travellers thwarted by Welsh travel restrictions.
The public footpath has had up to ten times as many walkers...
Although this has undoubted amenity and mental health benefits to people passing by, April is probably the worst time regarding wildlife impact.
I'm glad that I'd previously spent a bit of time enhancing the footpath (in terms of accessibility and biodiversity) - there are studies suggesting the more obvious a path, the less adverse impact from straying etc.
I've put a couple of extra coppice and woodland management information A4 info sheets up...


A new generation of hares has become quite obvious (as well as ducks and Canada geese).

 
One emergent incident was a car on its roof through the roadside hedge - fortunately no injuries, but the complexities of lockdown presented some challenges regarding recovery (and thanks to a local farmer given clearence to expedite removal to the recovery truck).


My other project at Farndon is a traditional / heritage varieties orchard - being near a larger village settlement, that has had a few specific trespass and damage problems - police have become involved and dialogue with a problem group seems to have settled things for now.
It does however highlight how less than positive engagement can become time and resource consuming.

Back at the woods before lockdown, I did have one odd incident of somebody photographing the nameplate and contact details at the roadside gatepost.
I'd have been a bit happier if they'd bothered to get in touch, not sure what their agenda is...


More positively, just prior to C-19 restricting things, I used a period of ill health (more Crohns complications) to get ahead with loads of paperwork.
Although I don't claim any grants / subsidies, I found a couple of errors in how the WPA had recorded field parcels- of course it wasn't a five minute fix either, but a couple of relaxed evenings prior to lockdown in Chester's Storyhouse Library (including bar & food) enabled various management plan updates and focus on tree and woodland habitat objectives.
I was also planning a range of visits / events and overlaps with other organisations elsewhere, but by March all that was on indefinite hold.
I did have some very positive news from an external organisation regarding woodland management practice, but that too is on hold until next year.

Back at the woods, the particularly wet winter slowed down a few things I'd have particularly liked to get ahead with (side branch pruning and finishing a coppice area for the year), but now we have the other extreme of being a bit too dry.
Ash Die Back realky is starting to show now in the wider area, a bit of a double blow was late frosts compromising recent new leaf growth on stressed trees.

On BBC Radio 4, the Costing The Earth programme recently did Future Forests - well worth a listen, particularly 'right tree, right place' and aftercare after planting initiatives...

More regular updates on @WurthympWood Twitter

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