As always, February has been a busy month over at Langford with our winter woodland and scrub management work programmes in full swing, before drawing to a close now at the end of the month.
This year, we have focussed a bit more on the woodland. Here we have selectively thinned some sycamores to create a glade in the middle of the woodland and some ‘scallops’ – curved open areas along the woodland edge. This thins the canopy, letting more light into the lower levels of the woodland and creating opportunity for the botanical diversity within these levels increase. Better botanical diversity of course, then has knock on positive effects for other wildlife from bugs to birds!
Selective thinning also creates space for the remaining trees to grow on. This is important for our oaks and elms, which are home to hundreds of species of insects, including the scarce butterflies – purple and white-letter hairstreak.
Hundreds of sycamore saplings have also been removed. This ‘carpet’ of small saplings was completely taking over the woodland floor. With many of these now removed, it makes way for other species of plant to colonise.
The scrub thinning work has the same principle as the woodland. Selective thinning creates lighter glades and scallopededges let light penetrate into the edge of the scrub block. We can already see the positive effects of previous year's work, with cowslips starting to grow in areas that were bare a few years ago!
Wildlife news lately includes the second flyover great white egret this year, pintail, barn owl hunting over the boardwalk and of course....the reedbed ‘big three’ – bittern, bearded tit and marsh harrier.
Woodland glade with habitat pile - perfect for nesting birds, insects and fungi.