Monday 15 October 2012

Back to the woods: fungi, a woodpecker and chainsawing windblow

I had a good day in the woods today; not only did I get a decent amount of work done, I also got photos of some of the wildlife, including a Greater Spotted Woodpecker. The first thing I saw upon driving in though was these Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria), so I stopped to get a pic:

DSC_4884 Fly Agaric

Once out of the car, I realised they were all over the place!
DSC_4888 Fly Agaric

Lots of other fungi out too, such as this decaying bolete:
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and some Brown Roll Rims:
DSC_4887

While I was getting my tools together I heard a woodpecker up in the trees. They're normally quite hard to photograph in the woods, being a bit shy, but this one came out in the open, though still a fair distance away:
DSC_4944 Greater spotted woodpecker

DSC_4937 Greater spotted woodpecker

DSC_4934 Greater spotted woodpecker

I eventually got on with the job for the day, and headed over to Sweep Wood, using the log trolley to transport my tools:
DSC_4951 Moving equipment on the log trolley

The area I was working in had suffered from some windblow, here it is a week ago, before I did some work on it with my friends Paul and Marcus:
DSC_4539 windblown trees

At the start of today the main clearing that's been created just had a couple more to take down:
DSC_4960

but there were still quite a few trees across the path and some broken stools to deal with:
DSC_4962

DSC_4963

Here's a short timelapse video I took with the GoPro camera to show you what I was up to...


So now there's a new clearing, which I'm sure will spring into life next year with the light coming in:
DSC_4968

and the path running past it is clear and safe to walk along:
DSC_4964

Some of the logs that were produced were fairly rotten, so I left them for the bugs to live in, but there was quite a bit of good stuff, which I moved with the log trolley.
DSC_4538 Logs on the log trolley

From today and the day I did with Paul and Marcus, we've got a decent pile of wood out of this bit of work!
DSC_4969 logs stacked for seasoning

We only need 4-5 times what's in that picture to do a year's heating at home...

Mike

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