Autumn comes to Wilderness Wood
An Indian Summer and autumn rains conspire to green the new ponds
21/09/2023
Thursday morning and it looks set to be a good warm, dry day. I chickened out of coming on my usual Tuesday because of heavy rain and strong winds. I had planned to coppice some young chestnut to build leaky dams – a job I have no interest in doing in driving rain. Although I do like my comfort, rain is not really a good reason to avoid the woods, however, yesterday's winds were of a strength that makes woodland walking a risky business. High winds can cause large branches to fall, whilst wet soils are less good at anchoring tree roots and there's plenty of examples of fallen trees in the wood to suggest caution is required.
The home team have started work on a new construction project – a new workshop this time. Timber framed of course, so yet another beautifully crafted building to grace Wilderness Wood. After a chat with Dan I realise coppicing would be best left for Jake to do next week. No worries – plenty to do.
The woods appear to be bursting with Forest School tots and a number of Home Ed kids doing woodwork with Kent, our resident woodwork teacher, but I'm more interested in checking on activity deeper into the woods.
Walking past Under-oak camp a small voice calls “Hello” and I struggle to spot where it is coming from. It's yet another home-educated - child sorting through leafy branches this time. I suspect he's shelter-building. I give him a waive.
Autumn is definitely upon us, the pathways strewn with green spiky balls. These are the cases of Sweet Chestnut prematurely brought down by yesterday's high winds. Sweet Chestnut dominates much of the wood, being coppiced by woodsman Andrew Coats each year. He has a coppice cycle involving felling one 'coupe' (French for cut), or compartment every year. This cycle is between 10 and 15 years in duration, allowing the poles to reach a suitable size for firewood and construction purposes. (see https://www.wildernesswood.org/wildlife-blog/woodlandtrees)
The trees also produce masses of chestnuts, worth collecting by Christmas Time to roast on the fire. British chestnuts don't really grow fat enough to be a commercial crop, unlike their Spanish counterparts which grow to perhaps double the size, but they are still worth foraging for.
Sweet chestnut seed cases (or are they hedgehog eggs perhaps?)
The chestnut coppice either side of Steep Hill was only cut 2 years ago, but already the poles are soaring above head height. It has been a good year for plant growth, with a perfect mix of rain, warmth and sunshine.
The rain however, does bring its problems for the wood. Besides weakening anchorage for tree roots, the water quickly runs off down pathways, carrying lighter particles of soil with it. Left unchecked, the paths would quickly erode, with deep gullies forming. I quickly spot that the 'run-offs' dug to divert rainwater off the paths and into the adjacent coppice has already become clogged with finer path material and I make a mental note to carry out the annual clearance of these over the next few weeks..
Surface water carries fine material away, which clogs the ‘run-offs’ of the pathways
Ahead of me a mother and two young children are walking. I assume they are yet more home educated students. Wilderness Wood appears to draw them here like a magnet, which is great. The challenges of educating children at home are many, but the biggest benefit to my mind is to be able to conduct their education in inspirational places like Wilderness Wood. What child stuck all day in a classroom wouldn't swap places with them. As an ex-teacher I couldn't wait to take my chance when it came, switching to outdoor education.
I catch up with them at the new ponds and the mother asks "Are you David?", it seems my fame has gone before me, “I helped you dig this pond 18 months ago,” pointing at the lower pond, “but we were hoping to see water in it.”
The lower of the new ponds still looks a little dry and forlorn
Sadly the pond has little more than 3 or 4 inches of water in it, but I tell her to come back in a month or two and it will be transformed by winter rains. She introduces herself as Biranda and her two sons as Auberon and Leander. Seeing a chance to utilise the boy's energy I ask if they would like to scatter a few Yellow Flag seeds I have brought with me. I have high hopes of them developing into tall wetland plants with long blade-like leaves and impressive big yellow iris flower heads.
Yellow Flag or Gladden will hopefully enliven the new ponds
I point out a number of small brown frogs which leap out of my way, former tadpoles from our ponds. These have survived the dry summer and the evaporation of their pond, but quite happy to forage for invertebrates in the adjacent wet woodland.
One of the boys spots a bracket fungus growing on a birch log felled a couple of years earlier - Birch Polypore (Piptoporus betulinus). This bracket fungus is a parasite on birch trees. Several years on, it is now living as a saprophyte, feeding off the dead wood of its victim now lying on the ground. The detective in me realises that it can’t be the same fruiting body that may have grown from the tree trunk years earlier, because of its horizontal orientation. The fruiting body always grows so that the the spore bearing tubes on its underside can drop spores into any moving air below it. If this bracket fungus was growing on an upright tree trunk it would no longer be horizontal upon felling. Elementary my dear Watson!
Birch Polypore grows horizontal so that its spores fall vertically and are carried away on the wind
The recent rains have brought a small amount of water to all three ponds, but they won't fill properly until the Wilderness Stream flows again. Despite the ephemeral nature of these ponds, they already have a good population of small black diving beetles keen to lay eggs, or at least find food. Little else is visible at present, indicating no invertebrates survived the previous hot dry weather, but within a week or two there will be midge larvae hanging from the water surface. I do spot an insect thrashing about at the water's surface, where it is caught in the stickiness caused by the surface tension. To my surprise I find it is an adult mayfly, still active in late September. I suspect she spotted a suitable nursery for her offspring, laid her eggs and job-done she was giving herself up to the wetland food-web. Nature works on regardless of the season or the weather. The upper pond is looking very healthy, with Amphibious Bistort (as its name suggests) equally at home in water or upon dry land.
Amphibious Bistort grows in the newly rewatered upper pond.
Moving down to Stream-side I casn see there is a slow trickle of water fed from nearby springs. Further rain and falling temperatures will soon see water percolating out of the bed rock and swelling the stream for its winter existence as a drainage channel and a provider of life for animals and plants living above and beneath the water's surface.
Take a walk in the autumn and winter months and you'll find Wilderness Wood is a completely different place from its summer equivalent.
Follow my exploration of the UK coastline through www.leggingroundbritain.com