WHAT WOOD YOU DO?

Good Morrow, good folk!  'What news, what news in this our tottering state?'

I was going to post something anodyne about the signs of spring, and the starlings which are doing imitations of swifts, on our chimney.  One even mimics the 'beep-beep' of the reversing garbage truck - quite  a repertoire.  

But there's too much momentous stuff going on in the real world and I need to do a double rant.  And it's a couple of  big ones, too.  But I think we can only stand one per week, don't you?  So here's the first:

Anemone nemorosa growing in ancient woodland near where I live.
(I've made the pictures bigger than the template allows but they look nice big
I must, must, must re-design this blasted blog.  It's horrible like this.)

Newspapers, blogs, Twittings and TV are full of sound and fury about the Coalition’s plan to sell off our publicly owned woodland. I don't know how you feel about that, but it strikes me as pretty pointless because no one stands to gain much. The Exchequer gets a tuppeny-ha'penny payment, barely glint in the bottom of the dark, empty coffer. Purchasers will end up with assets of dubious financial value, unless they are changed, exploited and possibly wrecked.  And above all we, the voters, the punters, the poor sods who have to put up with flaky governance and who have to finance the bank-buggered deficit with our hard-earned, risk losing a substantial and cherished chunk of our natural heritage.

Whichever way you look at it, it's likely to be a lousy deal with all sorts of nasty little trade-offs.

UNLESS – and it's a big UNLESS – there are safeguards of such cast-iron strength, that the woodlands' new owners make a better fist of managing them than the Forestry Commission has.  Indeed, it's an opportunity to change priorities on much of our woodland, and put biodiversity, conservation and accessibility at the top of the priority list.


I have no particular affection for the Forestry Commission.  Bad planting between the wars, and up to the 1980s has compromised diversity in much of our woodland and, when you compare ours with those of France, it becomes clear that we get a raw deal in terms of accessibility.  

The Bluebells, Hyacinthoides nonscripta, in Bourne Woods.  My father, my grandparents and great grandparents all gathered the flowers here each May, cycling over from Spalding on Sundays.  It was acceptable, in past generations, to gather wildflowers, just as it was to go birds nesting, and to collect Lepidoptera.

We're remarkably lucky, in my area.  We have large patches of ancient woodland, some Forestry Commission, some private.  Accessibility should be greater in the private woodlands than it is, but the Forestry land is well pathed - if there is such a verb - and greatly enjoyed by the local community.  Naturalists, cyclists, dog walkers - wish they'd keep their beasts on leads during nesting time - and others enjoy the woods greatly, particularly in spring.

I would think that the wildlife and amenity value of much of our woodland outweighs the commercial value of the timber, so the Forestry Commission could be more sympathetic in the way it harvests its crops.  But they have got a lot better in recent years.  


And what would new owners do?  Developers would love to get their hands on the fringes of Bourne Woods, and I know the council has beady eyes on its eastern edge for building a byepass.  Bye Bye bluebells; hello doggers and cruisers?  White admiral butterflies and nightingales?  Gone, and who cares?  Few knew they were there and anyway, there's room for an ASDA, now, on that wasteland. Hurrah!

If you want to sign a petition, to prevent selling the woods off, here's a link. And here's another.  


Otherwise, I'd just like to say why I love our local woods - and woods in general - so much.

Bluebells and Stitchwort, Stellaria holostea.  You couldn't plant better.

I love the woods because. . .
                                                Nature seems instantly accessible in them.  When you walk into a wood – especially if you do so alone – the change in habitat is arresting, at first, but after a moment of adjustment, becomes welcoming and soothing.  Sounds of the outside world are softened, and a normal spoken voice within the wood might jar, unless you hush up a little and begin to listen.

Wind sighs, in the branches but at ground level, the calm airs are rich with a cocktail of smells that might contain leafmould, fox, primrose flowers, oak tannin, bluebells, sweet violets, oxlips, sweet woodruff Galium odoratum, or honeysuckle.  In damp woods, there’s the balsam whiff of emerging willow leaves; in dry ones, the rankness of herb Robert, Geranium robertianum.  Garlic woods smell like a French kitchen in May and in October, fungal decay makes the air musty.

Primroses, celandines, anemones, bluebells, moss and birdsong.

A woodland picnic, a deux, is a joyous event.  If you sit still, in the same spot for half an hour, the less obvious things begin to appear. Coal tits, marsh tits, willow tits and with luck, a goldcrest or two might entertain you with their acrobatics while they forage for tiny invertebrates. In spring, the cuckoo repeats too much but the falling cadences of willow warblers, and sweetest songs of blackcaps make up for that.  If you're lucky, a nightingale might pipe up, drowning everything else.

A bank of wild garlic in Elsea Wood, Lincolnshire

You can gather free food in some woods. Bear garlic, Allium ursinum has fine flavour but you use the fresh leaves, rather than the bulb.  Our woodland edges are hung with blackberries ever autumn, there are hazel nuts if you can beat the squirrels to them and for the brave - or foolhardy - there are plenty of toadstools, both edible and extremely poisonous.

In wildest days of October or March, you can find sheltered walking, among the trees.  The wind howls and hisses over the top but your hair is hardly ruffled, as you stroll.  The dried, dead grass stems, in winter, look as lovely as the bare trees and lighten up the scenery with pale buff and dun.  And if it snows, you can walk through a photographic negative, with dazzling ground, looking lighter than the leaden winter sky.  

Woods are full of suprises, too.  I discovered small teasel Dipsacus pilosus locally - a rare plant I'd never seen in these parts.  I know too, where deadly nightshade grows, though busybody idiots try to uproot all the plants because they're so poisonous.  Would they plough in the foxgloves, too?

So those are a few reasons why I care so much about our lovely woods.

A foxglove explosion, in pinewoods in North Norfolk.  Digitalis purpurea does this sometimes. 

Next week, we'll do food.
Meanwhile, here's a vision of 2050:-
Nine billion people, a crashing climate, new top dog superpowers replacing the old top dog superpowers and a looming resources crisis.  Food for thought? And probably not for eating.

I'm listening to the prelude to Wagner's music drama Lohengrin.

And I think I've said more than enough!

If you've read this far, you should be sainted and granted three huge wishes.
Byeeee!