Yesterday I spent several happy hours in our wood bashing back the bracken. I use a long very sharp pruning saw. It is a bit laborious but quite accurate. I do have a petrol brush cutter and I do use it sometimes but that is not so controllable and sometimes plants I would like to preserve get the chop.
Man at work
Yesterday I cleared the area around my’office’ .. What you say an office in the woods. Well it is a very rough and ready hide which I am constructing using old logs, Silver Birch thinnings and some bits of old gazebo tarpaulin. So nothing very grand. I call it my office because a gentleman who sometimes stops for a chat and is a keen birdwatcher said that he and his wife were walking through our wood and she asked him what was the construction and he told her it was the owners office. So now it is my office, this is the view from the office and was the area I was clearing of bracken. It does also have some nice ‘proper ferns’ also some foxgloves and bluebells which is why I did not use the brush cutter.
And here are the results of my labours if you look carefully you can see I missed one.
Plenty of birds singing, I could identify cuckoo, chiffchaff, willow warbler, song thrush, blackbird, wren, and robin and then there was one other that was quite strident and burbling on and I thought it was probably a Blackcap and then I saw it and it was indeed a Blackcap so I was happy.
On the main paths which are now becoming quite like woodland paths as the trees are getting much higher I saw several Green Tiger Beetles which was nice but not when I had my camera with me. I did see this wasp though. Not your normal nasty stingy wasp but more of a solitary type. I also saw a hornet belting through and several Brimstone butterflies. There was also some nice bright vetch flowers blooming in one area.
So quite a good day but still loads more bracken I might do some areas with the brash cutter. I am not that fussed about it but I want a mix, some areas with bracken and some areas more open. a
