The rides have been cut!

It took James nearly 3 hours to cut the rides and the footpath along from the Old Rectory. As you can see there is plenty of vegetation to rake up and put into piles amongst the trees. This will encourage small mammals and insects into the wood.

We have made a start and the area in the middle and one of the rides have been cleared.  The lovely weather this weekend should encourage our willing volunteers to finish off the job.

These two wee beasties were a bit of a distraction. The Green Shield Bug on the seed head of a cow parsley plant  and a small spider that darted from the middle if it's web to sort out it's latest prey.

Wet, wet wet!

The wood is looking very colouful just now with a great variety of wildflowers growing along the rides and between the trees. One evening last week, I wandered about with my camera, as the sun was setting.  There were plenty of bees and other small beasties about, but not many butterflies, which is a bit worrying. The wet summer hasn't suited them at all and it has been difficult for us to find a suitable time to cut the rides.

There are always plenty of tiny beasties jumping around in the grass beween the trees. This one is a Meadow Grasshopper (I think)

This tiny spider seemed to be

posing in the evening sunlight!