The present populations of black squirrels are probably descendants of the ‘escapees’ / introductions from this one source and this perhaps explains why the populations are still relatively localised.  By comparison,  the grey squirrel was introduced to the U.K. on a number of occasions and hence its more widespread distribution.

It has been suggested that there are some 25, 000 black squirrels but no one really knows.  There are regular sightings of black squirrels in and around Letchworth, Hitchin and Stevenage, plus Girton near Cambridge.  A black squirrel project has now been established by Dr Helen McRobie of Anglia Ruskin University.  The project aims to plot the geographical distribution of the black squirrel, and it may also yield information about why this and the grey form have been able to establish themselves in the U.K.   To date, Dr. McRobie’s work has largely focused on the genetics of the black squirrel.  The black squirrel seems to be a melanic (dark) form of the eastern grey squirrel and is ‘common’ in certain parts of the United States and Canada.  The mendelian genetics of  coat colour are explained on her web pages : http://blacksquirrelproject.org/node/7 .

One possibility is that the black or melanic form is at a selective advantage in terms of maintenance of body temperature.  Black absorbs heat energy more readily than lighter colours – so perhaps the very dark squirrels survive better in cold climates, or perhaps they are better camouflaged in dark and dense woodlands.

Dr. McRobie is interested in sightings of black, grey and red squirrels; details of  ‘when and where’ may be submitted through this web link  – the black squirrel project.  She is also interested in obtaining DNA samples from various squirrels (but has been mainly limited to the DNA of roadkill to date) , so would be interested to hear from anyone who might be involved in the culling of grey or black squirrels in specific areas.

Dr.McRobie may be contacted through the blacksquirrelproject website http://blacksquirrelproject.org/

In terms of animal classification, woodlice are very near to saltwater prawns – they are crustaceans and belong to an order called the Isopoda (“same feet”). Worldwide there are 3,000 different species of woodlouse but only 40 of these are found in the UK; and the ones you are likely to come across will be from one of just five species. The 5 species that you are likely to come across  (throughout the British Isles) are :

• Oniscus asellus (the common shiny woodlouse),
• Porcellio scaber (the common rough woodlouse),
• Philoscia muscorum (the common striped woodlouse),
• Trichoniscus pusillus (the common pygmy woodlouse) and
• Armadillidium vulgare (the common pill bug).

They all seek out damp and dark conditions so the easiest way to find them is to look under stones and dead branches. We found most of ours hiding in an old tree stump.

Once we had gathered a good collection, we boiled up some water and then tipped in the woodlice where they died quickly. As they cooked their undersides went white but we kept them in a little longer as it is important to cook them for long enough to kill harmful bacteria. After just a couple of minutes, they seemed to be well cooked and ready. Using some pine needles as a sieve, we strained off the boiling water and I prepared myself for tasting my first woodlouse.

“Try one, they’re lovely” said our tutor, Sean Collins. I bit into mine and found it really surprisingly edible. Not a particularly strong flavour but quite like a tiny shrimp: it’s a bit crunchy but that’s the shell effect (Arthropods have an exoskeleton to which their muscles attach – whereas we have an endoskeleton for the same purpose). I wouldn’t describe the two I ate as filling,  but then they have the advantage that they are easy to gather and a ready source of protein.

Woodlice are called many different names. In the United States, they are usually called pillbugs which is perhaps because many species roll up into an almost spherical ball as a defensive measure and look like small pills. Around the UK,  they have various names, being called cheesy bugs in Kent, cheesebugs in Berkshire and gramersow in Cornwall. They are also sometimes called potato bugs, wood bugs, chucky pigs and roll-up bugs. The sub-group or genus of woodlice which roll up into a ball is the Armadillidium .

You can find the film we made about cooking and eating woodlice here:
www.woodlands.co.uk/tv/2011/12/how-to-cook-wood-lice-bushcraft-skills/

The eggs are usually laid in early Spring when there are young and ‘soft’ leaves.  Older leaves have a thick and tough cuticle that is far more difficult to penetrate.  The larvae or maggots emerge from the eggs and tunnel their way along the midrib / veins emerging some time later into the lamina or blade of the leaf.  Here they feed on the photosynthetic tissues of the leaf – the palisade and mesophyll layers, creating a leaf mine (see featured image).  The number of leaf mines per leaf is a maximum of three and often just 1 or two.

After a period of feeding, the larva turns into a pupa.  The pupal stage is one of internal reorganisation, when the body plan of the insect is ‘redesigned’ (for a picture of the pupal stage see http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/common-species/phytomyza-ilicis/index.html). After a while, an adult fly emerges from the pupa and leaf mine via a small hole (less than a millimetre in diameter).  These may be seen on the leaf surface.

The larva may not make it to the adult (imago) stage because

1. It may be parasitised by the eggs of a wasp – which devour it, or
2. It may be eaten by by a blue tit.  If this happens, there is clear evidence that the leaf mine has been pecked at / ripped open and the insect removed (see image).

The holly leaf miner is common throughout Europe.  For further information – see the links below :

• http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=531
• http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/common-species/phytomyza-ilicis/index.html

St Mark’s CE Primary School (Sussex) were surprised and delighted to be given the use of a piece of woodland and meadow, only 400 metres from the school.

First the whole school visited the Ashdown Forest (under the aegis of the Sussex Wildlife Trust ), Then all the staff took part in an INSET day – also led by the Sussex Wildlife Trust. This gave the staff the opportunity to develop and refine some ideas on how to use the wood and meadow land to enhance children’s learning.

With all of this fresh in our minds, Mr Warren organised several Saturday morning work days; the first was on the 24th October 2009. Although it was pouring with rain, dads turned up to transform the area into an outside classroom, or to use the current jargon “a Forest School“. After several hours of wet and hot work, a large fire, some kind words from Jill, and a well done from our neighbours, we had a circle of 25 wooden log stools and a beautiful clearing in which to teach.

More photographs will no doubt follow, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank Rob, Mike and Tony for all their hard work. Since that time, we have established a working party of parents and friends and they go along to the meadow, helping maintain and improve the area. This has brought a number of parents with particular skills into the school, and it has been a pleasure to welcome them and see them involved with the forest school projects. Our pupils have enjoyed the outdoor areas in a number of ways:-

• spending a day with a willow sculpture expert, and then making their own willow animals to place around the meadow.
• whilst working on a nativity, which looked at life from the shepherd’s perspective, the children carried out scientific experiments on sound, for example, seeing how far away they could go and yet be heard by the ‘sheep’.
• they have enjoyed problem solving and team building activities on Smile Meadow, run by Premier Sports. This helped them learn to work collaboratively.
• Smile meadow was an ideal location for the Easter Egg hunt.
• last year, a major project called a Stone Age Adventure took place. In this, the children undertook survival activities and worked with an archaeologist from Sussex University in the meadow. A stunning film was made in the meadow with the children about the life of a tribe in the Stone Age.

Many trees and overlarge coppice still lie where they fell, the coppice more often than not growing up again but from a much larger base.  The mature trees have been gradually rotting. All the resources locked up in the wood being released and taken up by bacteria, fungi, invertebrates and so to higher organisms.  It was a major ecological disturbance,  that in some ways has been of considerable benefit to wildlife.

Such was the ferocity of the storm that tops were blown off of trees, huge limbs from oaks dropping to the ground.   For species like poplars, there were places where whole plantations were decapitated.

Much data of root plates from trees windblown in 1987 was collected by the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew (http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/FCIN078.pdf/$FILE/FCIN078.pdf ) and its analysis has proved invaluable in our understanding of how root systems develop.

But what of trees that withstood the gale, how were these affected?  Those trees were the roots held firm would have been subjected to huge uni-directional stresses – the trees bending as they were hit by gust after gust.  Where the canopy was uneven as on the edges of woodlands or where stem distribution was uneven, there would have been rotational forces twisting the stem where failure would result not in horizontal cracking but in longitudinal cracks running up the trunk.  Oak is very strong and makes good beams but is weak along the grain, longitudinally and is easily cleaved.  At the time of the storm there would have been little evidence of this damage, now (some 24 yrs later), it is sometimes visible on the surface  - where regrowth either side of the fissure is seen (see featured image).   This photo shows an extreme case, where the internal cracking has subsequently deformed the tree’s growth.

While oak can withstand the ravages of bacteria and fungi the Turkey Oak is less resistant and more susceptible to attack.  We’ve had several cases where rot has set in at about 20 feet above ground level – as a direct result of water entering where cracking has been most severe – and the whole canopy has fallen out!  We’ve not observed this phenomenon in other species but they must have been similarly affected at the time.

24 year old stem section, regrowth from fallen chestnut coppice.

Regrowth from wind blown chestnut coppice

However, the ‘management’ of hedgerows or trimming / flailing of a hedgerow can make a significant difference to its productivity – that is, the number of flowers and fruits produced.  Recent work by Dr. Joanna Staly (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) has focused in on the management of hedgerows.   This study suggests that annual cutting of hedgerows is counter-productive. The research looked at different management regimes for hawthorn hedges in Cambridgeshire, and it would seem that a three year cycle of cutting (as compared to annual) gives twice as many flowers and three time the yield of berries / fruits (or more!).

At present, many hedgerows are under a two year agri-environment scheme (AES), with the hedgerows cut back in the Autumn.  A simple shift to cutting back in winter rather than Autumn would result in a substantial increase in berry yield but a three year management program would seem to be best in terms of supporting wild life.   Further details of this interesting work can be found here

• 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.

But woodland is also attractive to investors because it is a shelter against inheritance tax and it has low holding costs.  Many savers see woodland as a good investment because of the increasing costs of energy so that woodfuel is valuable and the land itself is a good shelter against inflation; income from timber is also tax free.  All this has pushed up prices for woodland to historically high levels.  These have now exceeded the prices in the early 1970s: at that time prices had reached about £300 per acre and the retail price index was then about 20 whereas it is now about 240.  Retail prices have therefore increased about 12-fold so that woodland prices in 1970 are equivalent to about £3,600 per acre in today’s money.

Today’s higher values are having some interesting side effects on woodland purchasing and management decisions: few coppicers can afford to buy their own land to coppice and younger people are less likely to be able to buy their own woodland than they were at the lower prices.  However, it looks as though those that do purchase are more willing to spend money on their woodland – after all, a £5,000 cost of improving tracks seems a large expenditure in a wood costing £20,000 but perhaps seems more justifiable in a woodland valued at £50,000.  If this is correct then there may be an interesting process going on which has also been seen in the residential property sector – as values increase owners are more willing to spend on renovations and restoration.  This might suggest a silver lining to the higher prices – that owners may spend more on maintaining their woodlands.

What is less clear is whether the higher values (the “new gold effect”) have encouraged passive financial investors to squeeze out active buyers who really want to manage their woodlands and enjoy them.  Certainly motivations for buying are usually mixed with tax and investment factors often considered.  Hopefully there will be many owners who are motivated to buy because of financial reasons but end up becoming keen woodland managers dedicated to improving their wood for wildlife and conservation.

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.

Whilst the robin is doing well, the same cannot be said for all other ‘red breasted’ birds .  Male linnets, lesser redpolls and bullfinches also display red breasts, like the robin.

The decline of various species of birds in the U.K. has been attributed to

• Habitat deterioration due to modern agricultural practices
• Changing patterns of agricultural land use (though the use of set aside has helped in more recent times)
• Woodland management or rather the lack of it

The linnet and lesser redpoll remain on the RSPB’s and BTO’s Red List.  The redpoll has featured more often in the BTO’s garden Bird Watch survey  ,  perhaps because in late winter they move from country areas to gardens in search of food.  Details of the BTO’s Bird watch may be found here

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.

The South and South East did not see a frost and the growing season for soft fruits was extended. Many flowers came into bloom again (poppies and hollyhocks in my garden).  As in 2006, trees stayed in leaf; and apple orchards recorded a bumper crop this year.  The profusion of berries, fruits and insects (including wasps !) has meant that many birds have remained active – blue tits were observed taking food to their young in their nests.

Lawn mowing was required throughout these months – as the grass continued to grow – a temperature below 7 ^oC is required for grass growth to come to a halt.

Whether the many juicy berries currently to be seen on the Holly trees are harbingers of really cold weather to come remains to be seen, or experienced !

Anyone interested in old sayings / adages / proverbs about the weather might be interested to have a look at “Weatherlore” (image of the cover is the featured image above) published back in 1893 – which is available at www.archive.org.

* to quote from the Met Office Site  “The mean temperature was 2.9 °C above the 1971–2000 average, resulting in provisionally the second warmest November in over 100 years – with only November 1994 warmer “

The Small Woodlands category will accept entries from owners of a single wood or neighbouring units of up to 20 hectares. The woodlands may be recent or old, but must have been established for at least ten years.  Held in association with the Forestry Commission England, the annual RFS Awards move around the country. Next year, it is the turn of the South West of England. The RFS are now ready to accept entries, which must be received by 6 March 2012. Judging will take place in May and June and the awards will be presented at the National Arboretum at Westonbirt on 5 July 2012.

RFS Chief Executive Dr John Jackson said: “This year the spotlight falls on the South West, and we are convinced the wide range of woodlands found across the area will reveal some truly exceptional examples of best practice”.  And what is considered best practice?   The judges will be looking for evidence of good, holistic management which has improved the wood significantly in some way. A key area they will look at is the suitability of tree species planted.

For further details and entry forms visit http://www.rfs.org.uk/involved/Small-Woodlands-Award or email rfscompetition@boyns.net.

If you need any help with your entry,  please email patricia@woodlands.co.uk.