Paul in the woods

Yep, another vote for squirrel damage, grey squirrel. It's been a very bad year for damage down here and I've heard other people around the country say the same.

It's not as simple as shooting a piece of paper from a set distance. Many air pistols will be well under the legal limit so marginal for rats and add in a rather loopy trajectory, moving target and a varying distance I wouldn't do it, but I know I'm a rubbish pistol shooter. What I have found is rats, squirrels etc seem to know if you've armed. I can be outside and they just sit there until I get the air rifle and then they're off. An air rifle would be my choice. I would also agree with the opinion you shoot to kill, not maim and hope something else does a better job. Having seen hens get mice etc the poor animal can be alive for quite some time as the hen with it runs around trying to find somewhere away from the rest of the flock. If in the UK you legally shouldn't shoot something unless you have the ability to kill it. I'd also add I would want to use lead free pellets if the hens are likely to eat the corpses.

Google images suggest Leopard moth, Zeuzera pyrina, and it looks similar but I had no idea if it would go that deep into such a large piece of wood.

Yes, it looks like a goat or grey willow. Seedlings often sprout from bought in compost or spread from nearby trees. Looks like an old catkin in your hand.

Our hens would eat almost anything that moved but I never liked the idea of eating a squirrel that has spent most of its life eating cheap supermarket fat balls. I would also wonder about them ingesting rat poison etc.

Has the guy's Dr or consultant not offered and advice? If not has he at least been on a first aid course which could offer some?

Yes. They're not the easiest animal to skin so I just use the back legs. They are ok, flavour fine but texture a little strange but something I could get used to. I should eat more. I wouldn't eat one from from a built up area as they eat all sorts of rubbish.

Surely if there's a TPO on the sycamore then the council should prosecute the squirrels.... I Actually is a badly bark stripped syc worthy of a TPO? Anyway, it's been a bad year for squirrel damage round here but they seem to be a bit daft and just sit there in the open waiting for me to get the air rifle so numbers are reducing quite well. If you don't want to shoot them then these traps work well. https://www.fourteenacre.co.uk/shop/fineren-bodygrip-box-for-squirrels/

A bit of a search keeps coming up with Emperor moth, some pics seem to match but they seem a bit variable.

I'll look into it, people often turn to god after driving up our heavily potholed road.

We got a bill for £2,500 without receiving much for it. If anyone knows a legal way to get out of paying council tax I'm all ears.

I think I know where the hedge cutting in June has come from but is there any basis for the 20m?

I'm mainly interested in the ash I have in my woodland but most of our trees were very late to come into leaf this year. Quite a few seem to be worse off than last year and I've not noticed any improvements. (On the bright side there are a few that seem unaffected, but thousands others gradually dying). What I have seen this year is trees with a good number of fresh leaves and shoots fail at the base. Previous years it's only been the dead trees than have fallen.

I think good drainage is important in reducing canker and some varieties are less prone to it than others - so pick a resistant variety.

Did you see the rats? The damage sounds more like voles to me, I've had voles nibble the top layer of bark off of some of my apple trees and keeping the vegetation away from the base of the trees stopped the damage.

I wouldn't say that tree.has obvious signs of dieback, just looks poorly grown and the damage at the base done by garden machinery or similar. I would expect to see some epicormic growth growing from the trunk and thicker branches if it has ADB (vigorous long straight shoots) and some dead wood in the crown. Having said that, ash is also susceptible to other diseases such as canker and with the base as it is I would consider removal and planting something more suitable if near houses.

I would be very careful with ferns, fiddleheads are a north american fern which isn't native over here. I didn't think our native ferns were edible.

That explains it, as sime42 says, Leylandii or similar. Burns ok, there's a thread on here about seasoning it. Smell might help to identify exactly what it is if in doubt.

Any smell? Looks like a conifer of some sort.

Are you sure it's Spartan, some of the cheap trees I bought don't match up with the varieties they should be. It's a good apple to give to people and shouting "This is SPARTAN!"

I think that's a mix of quite a few things. You might be better off asking a local tree surgeon if they could let you pick up something specific. Or put a rough location up and see if anyone local could help. If you were near me I'd collect whatever you wanted from my woodland and could tell you what everything was. (Apologies for all the other jokes, at least you didn't mention cod).

I suppose you were mascaraed for life.

She's the beautiful female, the handsome smaller chap often shared her bin. She often reared up and hissed which was a bit of a surprise. They spent a couple of months moving between a couple of bins and laid their eggs and we also had several slow worms in the same bin. I tend to pile up material, mix it, then pop in the bins. They then get left until winter before emptying.

My bins can look after themselves....

In an ideal world I'd like several large bays I could pile up loads of material in, something that would get hot enough to dispose of a body or two... At the moment I make do with I think about 8 daleks, and happily put all my grass cuttings in them along with other waste without problems, although much of the grass is long so more like mulched straw. My main problem is getting enough material as we have quite poor soil so need more compost than we can make.