Life and death

             Grey Squirrels are a pest ! They may be popular in our town park, where people like feeding them, but in woodland they are destructive vermin. They readily take eggs and chicks from the nests of small birds and are one of the causes for the major declines seen in our woodland birds. They also destroy trees. As summer progresses they develop a taste for the sugary sap of several tree species and to get at the sap they first strip off the tree's bark, which kills the branch and sometimes the whole tree. Birch trees are particular favourites but they also target Oaks and Sycamores. Spotting freshly peeled bark on the ground this week was the first evidence of this Summer's onslaught.

           Our native trees are having a hard time. Oaks are being hit by a nasty fungus related disease called Sudden Oak Death, which does what its name implies, meanwhile our Ash trees are being badly affected by Ash Dieback Disease and disappearing from the landscape. The wood is in a constant cycle of death and regeneration - on an old felled Pine trunk an Oak tree is growing from an acorn that must have fallen into a crack in the bark. Nearby, a small pine has been killed by a Roe Deer fraying the itchy velvet on its antlers. That's how it is. In the greater scheme and flux of an ancient woodland these are tiny events, yet in the background the impact of Climate Change is having affects that are only just becoming apparent. The numbers of migrant birds, indeed of all birds, are in steep decline. It is fortunate that it is still possible to find one or two Spotted Flycatchers and even hear a male Turtle Dove purring away from the top of a dead oak tree. Both are very rare treats these days.

Birch bark stripped by a Squirrel

The result of bark-stripping

Ash Dieback Disease 

Evidence of deer activity....bark rubbed off a small pine tree

Roe Deer like thin, flexible stems for this fraying activity. The tree will die

The Oak sapling

The Spotted Flycatcher - a migrant from Africa

A fine, beautifully marked Turtle Dove