One habitat at Langford that we don't often talk about is our woodland. The area is only small at around 3 hectares and comprises a mix of tree species, predominantly broadleaves including oak, English elm, sycamore, ash and four colossal hybrid black poplars. We undertake some small scale management within the woodland as part of our winter work programme each year in an attempt to increase the amount of light penetrating the canopy - this helps to increase floral diversity on the woodland floor, having knock on positive effects further up the food chain for invertebrates, mammals and birds.
We do this by taking out a small number of sycamore trees each year, concentrating on those around good specimens of oak and English elm. Sycamore doesn't support as many invertebrate species as oak or elm, so therefore reducing the number of sycamores and increasing the number of oak and elm will benefit the huge number of insects species that use oak and elm trees, including two scarce butterfly species, the purple and white-letter hairstreak, that are present in our woodland.
Brash and log piles made out of the felled timber also make great little micro habitats for a plethora of different species from fungi to beetles to nesting wrens and robins.
However if you have walked the public footpath through the woodland in the last week, you will have noticed out latest woodland management work - some new tree planting. Here we are trying to improve the understory of the woodland, something that is currently very under-developed and consists of only a few elder trees. Lower woody growth within woodland areas is great for introducing more botanical diversity, providing additional food plants and nesting areas (more plants = more inverts = more birds = more mammals!). So last Friday, our volunteers Stuart and Roger planted 40 hawthorn, 40 hazel and 20 blackthorn trees in clumps around the woodland, that when they mature will create great little thickets full of insects and birds. We hope to get a few more planted too in the next few weeks and look forward to seeing them develop.
Newly planted woodland trees.