Having acquired some deer stalking skills under the guidance of the venerable Gazza, I go solo today looking for signs of deer in the wood, with I have to say no small success!

Deer in the wood may sound like a good sign of nature recovering. It is not. Nature is out of balance when the natural predators of deer (Lynx, Wolf etc.) have become extinct due to hunting by Man. Too many people have grown up thinking all deer are Bambi. However, deer are a serious pest in our natural woodland, Wilderness Wood included. This post outlines some of the signs of deer in the wood as we follow Gazza (The Deer Hunter) on a Wilderness Wood field excursion.

Anne lived and worked at Wilderness Wood for 30 years. Every year in October, she comes back to run a series of fungi forays. Each year is different for the fungi - the weather, the conditions, the projects by Dan and Emily! But Anne always comes good at finding a range of fungi and inspiring a new generation of participants about the wonders and importance of the fungi world. Thank you Anne. Keep coming. This year, our French volunteers, took part in one of the forays and made this short film with an interview with Anne and close-ups of the fungi.

Drainage is a vital aspect of site management at Wilderness Wood, be it ensuring the workshop does not become inundated by water after heavy rains, supplying water to young hedge shrubs, or the creation of wet woodland and ponds. Without careful control of water movement through the wood we would be unable to ensure our mosaic of habitats stays in good health. Thankfully numerous volunteers do their part when it comes to the ‘grunt’ required.

After taking a break over the summer, David is back to continue with his periodic blogging. This post he deals with the thorny problem of rescuing a young planted hedge from the embrace of bracken and bramble invasion at Bat Park. Meanwhile the conservation volunteers have been busy at Hazel Grove clearing understory and erecting a deer exclosure.

During our annual Working With Wood Week in July, we set a moth trap and were lucky enough to find some really beautiful creatures in it when we opened it the following morning!

Staying the night at Wilderness Wood, in Yaffle, one of their two timber-framed cabins, gives me a rare chance to witness the wildlife of the wood after all the day visitors have gone home. I get to show my wife Frances all the projects I’ve been working on since her last visit to the site. Birdsong, bats, spring flowers, ponds, grassland and of course lots of trees.

Water is ‘the stuff of life’. The wildlife of Wilderness Wood is being transformed by encouraging it to stay on site rather then rush off downstream. Elsewhere in the wood the deer might have been fenced out of Bat Park but the young hedge saplings are now being threatened by invasive Bracken. It seems all our wins are temporary at best. A conservationists work is never done!

Late April in ancient woodland in the High Weald - it must be bluebell time! Bluebells do particularly well in coppiced ancient woodland with its periods of increasing shade followed by a few short years of illumination when the coppice is cut. Elsewhere in Wilderness Wood we are working hard to retain as much water as possible using a variety of methods - leaky dams, pond construction, stream diversion and runoff channels on steep pathways. This will hopefully see the woodland through the near rainless months from May to September. Climate change is a reality and we have to modify our management of the wood to address this change.

It is coming up to the time of year when humans and their dogs pick up blood-sucking passengers whenever they go for a walk in the woods or long grass. Time for us all to brush-up on our tick awareness.

We are trying to create an oasis of permanent wetness in the middle of Wilderness Wood. Leaky dams, restored ponds, redirecting the Wilderness Stream through wet woodland and now repurposing of the former stream channel into a series of dammed-up ponds.

This week it is all about spring flowers at Wilderness Wood. Many of these are triggered into flower by day length or rising temperatures. It is certainly a rush for many of them to get all the energy sapping business of sex out of the way before the leaves appear on the deciduous woodland trees and shade them from their only source of energy - sunlight. If you want to tick them off then you’ll have to get down to Wilderness Wood pretty sharpish then!

Hedge plants are bursting into leaf thanks to spring warmth and an absence of Fallow Deer which browse their leaves. The year motors on as birds sing for mates or to declare territories. The tadpoles are all now hiding in amongst the Water Starwort and the orchids are back. The great plans for extending our wetlands and ponds are developing apace. I can’t wait!

An over-ambitious pond building plan has been rethought in favour of a more scaled-back wetland option better suited to Wilderness Wood’s biodiversity improvement policy. The diversion of the Wilderness Stream provides an opportunity to create a wetland in place of this mass of brambles (bramble lovers don’t worry, we have plenty more of this important habitat on site, but very little wetland).

The President of the USA gives an annual state of the nation address, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t do the same at Wilderness Wood. It was 12 months ago that I wrote the first Wildlife Blog page, so now seems a good time to summarise what has been achieved over that time period, as well as throw in a few relevant observations from this weeks tour of Wilderness Wood.

Spring has finally sprung. Cotyledons, flowers, leaves, pollination, photosynthesis, growth, courtship, mating, egg laying. There must be something in the air!

Any opportunity to retain water in Wilderness Wood is grabbed with both hands. Redirecting the Wilderness Stream has left a deep ravine which lends itself to being dammed to create a deep pond. Well, that’s the theory, the practice is a little different - but then practice makes perfect.

Trampling of the margins of the new ponds needs to be addressed by adding fencing, posting information notices and good education regarding public access to fragile aquatic environments.

Playing at being an ecologist can present anyone attempting to carry out practical conservation with something of a dilema. Favouring the needs of one species or group of species can easily lead to the demise of another. Mother Nature has had millions of years of incrimental changes, known as evolution, to get to where we are today. When Man tries on her crown he suddenly discovers what a tricky job it must be. Much better to leave her to get on with it unhindered.

Spring weather during February half term brings visitors to Wilderness Wood in the hope of nature’s rebirth and warmer days ahead. Even Dan’s new bridge has been repurposed as a picnic site.