Well, this week has provided some of the best (only?) frost and ice of the winter so far here. The sight, on Monday morning, of the white and steaming plains of West Sedgemoor beneath a pinkish sky – the oblique rays of sunrise slow to dissolve through the white fog – was a sight for sore eyes. Sore from the glower that has been this winter so far. There’s something very cleansing about frost. The crystalline surface, so pristine, so beautifying but also ephemeral. And if it was cold then at least was too cold to rain.
I took a day off on Tuesday, when the fog lasted all day, staying dark and other-worldly, following the bright white crispness of Monday. But it remained very cold… I took myself to Greylake and enjoyed peering at the teal and wigeon and mallards that looked pretty sorry for themselves on the frozen water in front of the hide, with most out of the open water and skulking together on the bank. But really, the fog was so dense, it was hard to tell how much was out there. I spent some time wandering through the reedbed, walking to keep my toes warm. And I couldn’t believe it when I saw a hare ahead of me. I startled it at first, sending it off around the corner. But I made use of the fog covering and stalked it a while. I might well have just been walking through and it still would have only bounded off a few metres from me at a time. I’d not seen a hare there before. We do get them frequently in the fields at Greylake but this one had found its way to the reedbed. In fact, I visited again later in the week, to show around our lovely new office administrator, Nathalie. And we had a remarkably similar experience with a spritely stoat, in the exact same spot. Its black tassel tail confirmed it wasn’t a weasel. We turned a corner and there it was again! As if never expecting us to persist in the direction we were anyway going to take. In the summer, I spotted a pair of water voles swimming in the wide ditch beyond the south side of the reedbed, which separates it from the King’s Sedgemoor drain. It’s so nice to see these mammals benefitting from Greylake.
So what have we done this week?
A trailer-load of stone was taken to Swell Wood in order to fill in the pot holes that had begun to pose a problem at the entrance of the car park. We’ve also added more stone to the steps up the Scarp Trail (which is over the lane from the car park), because in especially heavy rainfall the water overflows a drain and runs down them. I walked the Scarp Trail this week too, in order to check conditions. These are muddy. Beneath the leaf litter is clay and at times the path has been really quite slippery. At the moment, it’s a very sticky mix of the clay and the leaf mould and when I walked up to the carpark at the end, with thick clods of mud like overshoes, I felt like a chaffinch with a viral foot infection. It’s still passable but only if you feel confident on your pins. I like woodland at this time of year. Once you’re tuned in, it’s so easy to see all the little plants of spring showing themselves already, which either vanish or blend into leafy subordination once the leaves of the trees come out. These plants that are so diminutive but lovely. It appeals to me in the same way that snowdrops do in the garden. Even though bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) aren’t in flower until about May, their leaves are already visible, pushing through the layer of wet brown leaves. We want to document the plants of the woodland floor here. You can see now, the middle of January, the emerging leaves of early purple orchid (Orchis mascula), and tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum), lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), hundreds of goosegrass (Galium aparine) seedlings, unfurling new flower spikes of dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis), the lovely sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum), wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides) as well as a liberal coating of feather moss (Eurhynchium spp.). And you are occasionally brought out of your reverie by the fantastic little scarlet elf cup fungi (Sarcoscypha spp.).
Above: Leaves of early purple orchid.
Below: Leaves of bluebell, seedlings of goosegrass (cleavers), ivy, lesser celandine, feather moss and scarlet elf cup.
The work to widen the woodland rides in the Woodland Trail continues. We’re coppicing either side of it to at least 3m width, while trying to let this widened woodland ‘ride’ veer off sometimes to one side then to another, so that the edges aren’t uniform or straight. We want scalloped edges and billowing brambles. We also want more light. We’ve cut away most of the coppiced hazel but now we’ll look to thinning out some of the taller trees, the oaks. These, which were planted as a plantation, probably as timber for ships but never harvested, are relatively close together and have thus grown tall and straight in a state of constant competition with each other to reach the light. Where we’ve found an oak with stronger lower branches, we’d like to clear space around it to allow that tree the extra light and space to spread out. A thriving woodland, with the greatest biodiversity, wants a range of ages of trees, from the shrub species (in our case hazel, holly, bramble, blackthorn, dog rose) and tree saplings at the bottom, to the medium size trees (field maple, beech) to the top of the canopy (oak, small-leafed lime, ash, pine). And preferably examples of these tallest of our species at lesser heights too. You also want a mix of ages so that as the oldest trees come to the end of their life, there are trees waiting to take their place.
We are all very inspired by this work. And very excited to think how we could transform the woodland at Swell. We anticipate a greater diversity of plant species on the woodland floor. The woodland floor is part of the magic of visiting woods. While there is considerable ivy, we wonder if improving the light levels and thinning out the canopy could improve the composition of species. It’s a wonderful thing that the RSPB manages its land to protect and promote plants and mammals and fungi. It’s not just birds.
Below: Hare in the reeds, in the fog.
© All photographs my own.
Fiona
West Sedgemoor Residential Volunteering team