Bombus

Good advice. Thanks.

Sounds good. I'll take you up on that at some point.

Thanks. Yeah, ride widening is definitely on the cards. Will do...

I know the pictures aren't great, but anybody else got any general thoughts on it? Am I mad taking it on? I know it's going to need a lot of work initially at least, but 5 acres isn't very big and I'm hoping it'll be a fun project and turn into somewhere nice and peaceful for relaxing and enjoying with the family.

I'm not actually sure, since I haven't been able to get into most of it yet. Some of the ash is a reasonable size for burning. I did coppice a few just to get some light into a struggling bluebell patch. I'll see if I can find a bit of it and count the rings. I need to make some room anyway and get my rotation going, so will clear and cut an area and go from there. The Hazel will be getting too big for anything useful, so will need cutting anyway if I am going to keep it in rotation. I'll be spending a few days down there this week hopefully, so will get some new pics.

Yeah, don't know when exactly, but seems to have been done fairly recently.

Thanks a lot. Very useful. The soil is clay, not sure about PH, but assume it's probably neutral to alkaline and overall it's fairly moist, but not boggy. I was aware the walnuts chemically inhibit other plant growth, but hadn't really considered the impact too much. Might be useful for a camping/picnic and parking area.

Photo's aren't great, but all I've got to hand. Where am I going to put the trees? Good question! I'll squeeze them in somewhere. Hopefully. I'm thinking I'll do a bit of scrub clearance and coppicing and stick them in the gaps in the cant, then maybe sacrifice some of the existing stools later. Not having too many standards currently gives me a bit of room and light to play with potentially. I'm open to any suggestions though.

Any thoughts on the species I've ordered, or the best way to introduce them to the wood?

http://www.woodlands.co.uk/owning-a-wood/managing-your-woodland-for-wildlife/07-chapter-5---creating-new-opportunities-for-wildlife.pdf 5.2 Bird nestboxes Bird nestboxes can make an enormous difference to the populations of some species, but in many woods they are simply not necessary. First of all you need to assess the availability of natural nest holes in your wood. Mature woodland which has good structural diversity and trees of a wide age range, including older trees with holes and cavities and similar nest sites, is unlikely to benefit from nestboxes. This conclusion may be confirmed if you find evidence of the presence of good populations of a range of hole-nesting birds: consider carrying out a woodland bird survey in spring (see Section 2.3). If there are already enough nesting places, boxes can actually upset the balance of species if they encourage the populations of commoner birds such as blue tit, which can compete aggressively with much rarer species such as marsh tit for nest sites and food (Symes and Currie, 2005). Nestboxes might be considered if a particular species such as pied flycatcher or willow tit is declining or absent, in which case boxes could be put up specifically for the target species, especially if suitable nest holes are in limited supply. Similar issues arise if you have a new woodland at the stage of canopy closure. Here there will be few if any natural hole-nesting opportunities, but putting up nestboxes will attract relatively common species such as blue tit and great tit. These birds normally feed in the higher canopy, but in young woodland, they might compete for food with declining understorey specialists such as nightingale, garden warbler and willow warbler. In contrast, nestboxes may be much more successful in secondary lowland woodland with poor structural diversity, lacking in older trees, and hence with few opportunities for holenesting birds. Mature woods which have been heavily managed, with few old trees remaining, also lack natural tree holes; examples include lowland mixed deciduous woodland converted to conifer plantations or chestnut coppice with few oak standards remaining; and many of the heavily managed upland oak woods in western Britain. Pied flycatcher and common redstart in particular, which have declined in western oak woods, have benefitted enormously from major nestbox schemes, providing the woodland has sufficient food resources available. Nestboxes can also be successfully employed for owls in young woodland, or larger open areas associated with mature woodland or plantations. Barn owl boxes erected 3–5 m above the ground on a solitary mature tree or pole may also attract other species such as kestrel and stock dove.

Awesome thread/wood! Couple of quick points after reading through. I'm no expert, but have read that bird boxes aren't always a good idea in woodland, as they can encourage the more common birds like blue and great tits at the expense of rarer/more specialist birds. And you have to be careful with Glusophate. it's very toxic to aquatic live, so be careful around water courses and ditches.

It's interesting that you've planted so many Hazels WoodyGuy. What's your reasoning? I assume you have a market/use for them? My understanding was there's not much demand for it these days, and what demand there is is supplied by very cheap imports from eastern Europe. Since it's not useful for long term firewood production, I'm struggling to see what I can do with acres of Hazel coppice. I'm not planning on getting rid of it all by any means, but I think losing some to add to the overall diversity will be a good thing overall.

I'll bear that in mind. I've also read that brash can encourage rabbits, so it's not easy to know what the best approach is.

i appreciate the advice and I am trying to be measured and careful about what I do. I just feel that a wood mostly made of only 3 species (all of use commercially previously and 2 in imminent danger from pests/diseases) isn't that natural or robust. I'm not planing on clear felling whole chunks at a time, just selectively introducing a few new native species here and there. The one's that are well suited, will hopefully spread over time, the one's that aren't might struggle and get out competed. There's a lot of Hazel coppice (which unless someone knows different) isn't that useful these days, so I think replacing some of it, with more variety will be beneficial overall. Plus, my wood is a small part of a much larger wood, so any changes i make to my little bit won't affect the overall balance/composition too much and can only help on a larger scale. I'm open to all advice and suggestions though! I just want to do what's best for the wood at the end of the day.