The Tuesday Gang

In the glorious late autumn sun, volunteers got stuck into a day of willow coppicing.  This area of the reserve had become very dense and closed in.  We also wanted to reduce the height of the trees to encourage overwintering birds to come down and feed on the many hawthorn berries and other fruiting bushes found here.

The picture above shows the site at the beginning of the day.  Good progress was made through the morning and a fire was started to get rid of the brash.  Some of the larger stems were moved to the stone pile ready to be chipped for use around the reserve.

By the end of the afternoon we had created a glade, returning the coppiced area to an earlier stage of succession.

We have achieved a lot here today and as always our thanks go to the volunteers who have worked hard to improve the quality of habitats on the reserve.