Rory's Wood is one of the best places in the Reserve to hear a nightingale in spring, but in winter, what is there to see?Every year at this time Rory's family gathers to remember his birthday and to do some management in the wood. I am always amazed at the diversity we have created there in quite a short time. It used to be a Turkey-oak monoculture with almost no understory, but a lot of other native trees have been planted and the Turkey-oaks have all gone.
The result is that a lot more light now penetrates the wood and so the field layer and the understory have greened up. Meanwhile, the felled oaks have rotted away to provide a medium for a myriad of mushrooms. I have never seen such an amazing array of fungi as I did on Sunday. In the rain, Rory's Wood looked like a dripping, mossy rain-forest from Washington State.
During this years work-party it rained continuously and so my camera misted up, but I still managed to get a few snaps before my mobile phone insistently beeped in "outdoor mode". I picked up a call from the Voluntary Wardens in the Visitors' Centre regarding a break-in in progress at the yard where we keep all our gear. I gathered a posse of two (almost) able bodied men and set off in swift pursuit.We met a convoy of cars and prepared to do battle, only to find that they contained a team of volunteers on a Sunday work party that was organised by the Friends. Red faces all round! Frankly, I was relieved, as my posse was more concerned with finding a nice public lavatory. Us old guys have to consider our prostates before we go into a full-on rumble. All the same, we are up for it. Just bring it on! Grrrr.
The real reason for our work party was that I applied for a grant from the Forestry Commission (now ominously termed "Forest Enterprise" (It sounds like the sort of wooden ship that turns over and sinks off the Dutch coast). I succeeded in the application and was all set up to plant 1000 hazel trees when I was told that the money had run out. This is actually a relief because 1000 trees is an awful lot to plant on a small site. We settled for 100.
No doubt the squirrels and jays will be pleased, but, if we had a decent density of hazels, maybe dormice could move in?
