Guest blog by Ally Hoadley, Minsmere volunteer
Yesterday's Big Community Work Party went off reserve to Dunwich Forest. Here, the RSPB is working closely with the Forestry Commission to return felled pine forest (grown for timber) back to its natural heathland.
On arrival we split into groups and spread out over the heath, which in the several years the RSPB have been managing it is already beginning to naturally re-colonise: patches of bell heather are present throughout, though with only a few pink bells now as it is autumn, with ferns as tawny as leaves overhead, and bramble and gorse reclaim the land. Alongside these, saplings of the Corsican pine and silver birch are coming through which if left would take over and become woodland, so our job today was to cut them down and paint the stumps to prevent re-growth.
Bell heather by Ally Hoadley
Split into ‘loppers’ and ‘sloppers’ we worked steadily through to tea and coffee in the day’s one sunny interval; and after lunch we cleared away that which had been cut down, serenaded at one point by a midday male tawny owl. Some of the silver birch saplings will go to help nightingale conservation: by placing the cut twigs and branches over brambles it stops deer being able to graze them, also meaning the brambles grow faster as it gives them a frame to climb: the undergrowth providing nightingales with ideal nesting places.
Staff and volunteers hard at work. Photos by Christine Hall and Ally Hoadley
It was fascinating to walk to the timber forests still remaining around the heath’s edge: as the trees are all planted at the same time and grow so fast, no undergrowth or secondary species exist, and so cannot support a full ecosystem. But just a few steps into the restored heathland a small copse of mature deadwood silver birch have been left: skirted with ferns, fungi have claimed them - round black growths a few centimetres wide called ‘King Alfred’s Cakes’ climb the trunks (and make very good tinder), ‘Small Purple Jelly Discs’ live up to their name, in fact looking like small brains they sit here and there on the bark, while ‘Birch Polypore’ skirts all the way up one tree in clusters of bronze, all this providing perfect homes for beetles and other insects.
Lichen encrusted birch by Ally Hoadley
We were a large number on Thursday, and were able to clear away a good number of saplings to allow further heather re-growth. All of this work is of course to ensure that there are strongholds for species such as nightingales, adders, woodlarks and the silver-studded blue butterfly.
These community work parties will be held on the last Thursday of the month throughout 2015, except May and December. For further details please email minsmere@rspb.org.uk