Working in the Sun
Sunday, April 13th 2025
Last week team members from the environment agency visited Foxglove Covert LNR for a day of hard work in the sunshine.
The morning started out with some path maintenance on the easy access red route, stripping back moss and grass to reveal the gravel below. The paths are being returned to their original width and removal of vegetation will allow the wheels of pushchairs and wheelchairs to get better traction on the hard surface.
In the afternoon, the team moved some of the material coppiced over winter to the meadow, where we began creating a dead hedge along the back fenceline. This will help maintain the border between the reserve and the Catterick training area, as the exisiting fence is slowly rotting away.
Thanks to all the team members who came along and worked hard to improve the infrastructure on the reserve.
Winter Work
Thursday, March 6th 2025
This Sunday at Foxglove Covert LNR saw the final winter worky day of the 2024/25 winter season completed.
The day began with clearing scrub on the wetlands. Gorse is beginning to take over some areas of the wetlands. Removal efforts were focused on a pond in front of the wetland hide which had become particularly overrun with gorse.
The afternoon was spent ring barking in the conifer plantation. Quick progress has been made on the ring barking project this winter.
Thanks to everyone who has attended a worky day this winter. Winter worky days will resume in November 2025. For now, work at Foxglove Covert will move away from woodland and scrub management. As we look towards spring, with trees exiting dormancy and animals beginning to nest, work will begin to focus more on the maintenance of infrastructure around the reserve.
Wonderful Woodcock!
Tuesday, February 25th 2025
The Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) is a wading bird with resident and wintering populations in the UK. Some populations stay in the UK year round, breeding and wintering here. Other populations migrate to the UK from Russia and Finland for winter.
Foxglove Covert has a successful population of Woodcock thanks to the large area of willow carr (wet woodland) on the reserve. Despite being a “wading” bird, woodcocks prefer woodland habitats with dense vegetation as well as damp, clear areas of ground where they can feed. They use their long beaks to probe leaf litter and soil for earthworms and other invertebrates.
Woodcocks are most active at dawn and dusk, and tend to feed at night. This means that visitors to Foxglove Covert will rarely see them; Woodcocks are secretive, shy and extremely well camouflaged. However, there is still a chance of seeing one while wandering around the wooded areas of the reserve, especially near opening and closing times. You might just disturb one while walking around, so look out for a chunky wader which zig-zags away in flight to find cover away from noisy walkers.
At Foxglove Covert, areas of the willow carr are coppiced in a rotation, so that there is variation in tree age and canopy cover throughout the reserve. This means there is always a mix of open and enclosed areas, providing Woodcock with sufficient feeding, roosting and nesting areas. Last winter volunteers created a glade in one of the coppice areas, which has provided an additional open area for Woodcocks, ideal for feeding. Woodcock have been filmed on a trail camera feeding in the glade multiple times this winter.
Although Woodcock numbers are difficult to monitor due to the species being so elusive, we hope to continue managing woodland habitats so that Woodcocks can thrive at Foxglove Covert.
Listing Birds
Thursday, February 20th 2025
I like making lists, and as a birdwatcher I keep a list of all the birds I see each year. I haven’t had the chance to go far on my birdwatching trips this year; limited to my garden, local patches in walking distance, and of course Foxglove Covert. So, my list is still quite short for 2025, and full of the usual suspects; blackbird, robin, jackdaw, et cetera. But one day this week was a particularly good day for birdwatching at Foxglove Covert, and I saw three new species in one day.
Arriving in the morning, I glanced out the window to the Field Centre garden, and immediately caught sight of a Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) in amongst the Lesser Redpolls (Acanthis cabaret), happily enjoying the niger seed. And then – another, and another, and another – at least 8 Brambling in the garden. The last sighting of Brambling at Foxglove was in early December 2024, so it was lovely to see them back at the reserve, and a first for 2025 for me.
Only a couple of hours later, while clearing some vegetation around Spigot Mere, Reserve Manager Carl flushed a Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) from the edge of the pond, and we watched as it frantically flew away. It was a very brief encounter, as encounters with Snipe often are. It has been a little while since I’ve seen a Snipe, so it was a nice bird to add to my 2025 list.
The final new bird of the year was the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta). These small herons are a beautiful bright white with contrasting black legs and a shock of yellow on the feet. The rapid expansion of the Little Egret’s range means that for me, growing up in North Yorkshire, this bird has gone from a rare sight to a relatively common one. But I still hadn’t had the chance to spot one in 2025. One was seen by volunteers on the lake just two weeks earlier, and I’ve been keeping a look out for it ever since. It was therefore a delight when we caught sight of it stood near the lake, just before it took off and flew slowly away, a stark white spot over the treetops.
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Hopefully many more interesting birds will show up at Foxglove Covert in 2025!
- El, Reserve Ranger
Ring Barking in the Conifer Plantation
Friday, January 3rd 2025
Within Foxglove Covert LNR is an area of very dense conifer plantation made up of two conifer species; Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis). The high density planting in this woodland means little light reaches the woodland floor, and therefore there are very few understory plants. As it is, the plantation supports a low diversity of plant and animal life.
In some areas of the plantation, canopy cover is slightly less dense, so grasses and shrubs like Common Gorse (Ulex europaeus) and Holly (Ilex aquifolium) are present. These glades are small and still lack much light, so the understory, while present, is underdeveloped.
Recently, Foxglove Covert LNR has been granted a felling license by Forestry Commission England which will allow us to ring bark (also known as girdling) a small portion of the trees in this plantation. Ring barking kills a tree slowly where it stands. This will allow us to thin out the dense areas and create glades within the plantation.
Ring barking involves taking off the bark of a tree in a ring around its trunk. This can be done using tools such as draw knives and axes.
Ring barking cuts into the vascular cambium of the tree. This prevents the flow of nutrients between the roots and foliage of the tree, which eventually kills it. The image below is of a tree which had been ring barked approximately one year ago.
Over the span of years, the foliage on the tree will drop, opening up the woodland canopy and allowing more light to reach the woodland floor. A more open canopy will massively improve the biodiversity of the plantation, by allowing a varied understory of shrubs, grasses and wildflowers to develop. The ring-barked trees themselves will also support diverse wildlife, including fungi, insect, bat and bird species.
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