This is a guest blog by Jacqui Weir about her work on woodland management. A lack of woodland management has been identified as a key driver for many woodland bird declines and this partnership project is delivering work at a landscape scale approach in Sherwood and beyond. So over to Jacqui -
Jacqui on a site visit to give woodland management advice.
Woodlands have always fascinated me. Being in one gives me the sense that I am somewhere ancient, somewhere natural, somewhere resembling an ancient British landscape from many centuries ago. Tales and legends like Robin Hood spring to mind.
In fact, woodlands have been used and managed by people in this country for so long that they are not the pristine, untouched habitat they may seem. Much of the ancient forest of Sherwood was itself a royal hunting ground, managed for grazing livestock and hunting deer. For centuries people have been harvesting wood for fuel and timber for building. Further back in prehistoric times, large grazing animals that we have now lost may have modified the landscape into a patchwork of woodland and more open land.
One of the problems now facing our woodlands is actually a lack of management. Because the overall area of remaining woodland is now comparatively small, there isn’t much room for the patchwork of different structures that would have existed. Traditional management would have replicated this patchwork, and much of our native wildlife has become adapted to these management systems. Rides created for access into woods gave butterflies and other insects the sheltered, sunny places where they could thrive. Regularly harvesting moderate amounts of timber meant that more light reached the woodland floor, allowing woodland flowers, new trees and shrubs to regenerate, and the remaining larger trees to develop big, leafy crowns and snags of deadwood. This gave birds, bats and other creatures the variety of nooks and crannies they needed to live and feed in. Some particular management systems, like ‘coppice with standards’ where large timber trees were grown over a layer of smaller trees like hazel, harvested frequently for smaller products like bean poles, were particularly good for some species of wildlife.
Because of market prices and practical considerations, people who own woodlands have not had the same reasons to manage their woods in recent years. This has meant that woodland structure has changed, and woods have become a lot shadier and more uniform than they were. Many species of wildlife that depended on this structural variety are struggling.
Two things in particular appeal to me about woods - walking in a woodland in the spring and seeing a carpet of native purple bluebells, interspersed with white and yellow from the other woodland flowers; and hearing the songs of woodland birds around me, marsh tits with their sneeze-like call and willow warblers descending the scale. Excitement when occasionally a lesser spotted woodpecker may call - a harsh, primeval, bird of prey –like noise, accompanied by its fast, excited drumming high up in a tree. Lesser spotted woodpeckers are hard to see and mainly only heard early in the spring when they are starting to breed. I was once lucky enough to see a pair of these birds in display flight – dancing and fluttering almost like butterflies.
I am now fortunate to be working on a woodland conservation project to encourage more management and help these declining species. Advising people on how to manage their woods for the species in their area, and helping them to gain benefits from the woodlands themselves, like woodfuel for heating buildings, is incredibly satisfying. I am employed jointly by Forestry Commission and RSPB, and we work with other organisations (including Bat Conservation Trust, Butterfly Conservation, Plantlife and Natural England) and local partnerships to make sure that what we do will benefit people and species across whole landscapes – focusing on the East Midlands as this is a great hotspot for woodland wildlife. You can find more information here on the East Midlands Woodland Biodiversity Project.
A woodland ride managed for wildlife - providing open areas, tall grasses and herbs, bushes and trees.