The Woodlands.co.uk Blog - December 2011
Is land the “new gold” for investors? What might this mean for woodland owners
The ongoing financial crisis was expected by many to push down the price of land but it seems that it has in fact pushed up land values. What appears to have happened is threefold:
- people are getting such a low return on their cash that they feel land is a more attractive option
- investors don’t trust the banks and think of land as a “safe haven”
- whilst many are suffering from the downturn there are many others with cash who are choosing to invest in land.
Land has been described as the “new gold” – a safe haven for wealth even if actual returns are low. This also seems to explain the buoyant residential property market in central London. Read more…
The Robin
Season’s Greetings.
The robin, frequently pictured on Christmas cards, is making something of a “come back”. Its numbers have increased by roughly 50%, compared to when it was first recorded back in 1970.
The RSPB has suggested that milder winters and earlier Springs have contributed to its increased numbers; and it is estimated that there are now some 5 – 6 million breeding pairs of robins in the U.K. However, its populations can be ‘knocked back’ by hard winters – such as we have experienced recently. A small bird, such as the robin, can rapidly lose much of its body mass through a short succession of cold nights and days – burning its reserves (of fat) to generate heat energy to maintain its body temperature. They also use up energy in the search for food, which is often in very limited supply under cold conditions. Read more…
Unseasonal weather
We have experienced an extended and warm autumn, and now true to Pliny’s words -
winter weather has now firmly settled upon us. The temperature is down to “more representative” seasonal values for December, and cold, high winds have recently lashed Scotland and other parts of the U.K.
The warmest Autumn (for some 300 + years) was in 2006, when the temperature was some 2.4 / 3 oC above the seasonal average ; places like Kinlochewe recording a daytime temperature of 22.5 oC. The recent mild weather * was due to an unusual pattern of high altitude winds over the Continent. The course of the jet stream meant that there were southerly winds and relatively settled conditions over the United Kingdom.
Call for entries for prestigious Small Woodlands award in the South West
Caring for a woodland is a labour of love that takes commitment, hard work and altruism. Some of that conservation work may not yield fruit for a generation, but when it does, it boosts entire communities. By recognising the efforts of woodland owners, we may inspire others to do the same. So, for the second year running, Woodlands.co.uk are sponsoring the Small Woodlands category in the prestigious Royal Forestry Society (RFS) Woodlands Awards and you are warmly invited to participate. Read more…
Holly – a really useful tree
In various older texts on botany and gardening, it is said that ‘ … in Germany, Holly abounds in many forests… In France, it is abundant, more particularly in Brittany. The tree appears to attain a larger size in England than in other parts of Europe“ Certainly, in the past there were large areas where Holly was abundant. For example, Needwood Forest in Staffordshire. This was a significant and ancient Midlands forest. However, the Enclosure Act of 1803 allowed for the felling of large numbers of trees; this took some time to complete. In his ‘Plant Book’, Professor David Mabberley notes that some 150,000 holly trees were taken from Needwood about this time, to provide bobbins for the cotton mills of Lancashire. (Bagot’s Wood is said to be the largest existing piece of this ancient wood). Read more…
Woodlands are more than just collections of trees
A leaf usually has a lifetime of only a single year but is often seen as the basic building-block of a forest which lasts for much, much longer. A tree has a lifetime of about 100 times as long as a leaf, with a lifespan of about 100 years. Looking on a larger scale, the forest may have a life of 10,000 years or about 100 times that of the individual tree. So these three elements – leaves, trees and forests – are each a couple of orders of magnitude apart in their length of life, yet they are vitally reliant on each other, and we instinctively think of a causal chain, with leaves leading to trees and trees leading to forests. Read more…