Room to Let

On Saturday the Roundball Wardens used a welcome break in the cold weather to review the housing stock in the woods.  Whilst in other areas of Honiton proposed new housing development is causing concern, in the woods it is welcomed with no objections. Recognising the needs of new couples this spring we have erected 6 new starter homes, also known as nest boxes.

The existing boxes have also been cleaned out and renovated. In some of these older boxes you may have noticed that the entrance holes are larger than in others. This is the work of our resident Greater Spotted Woodpeckers and Grey Squirrels who see the young of Blue Tits and Great Tits as a good meal for their own young. To remedy this we have fitted metal plates to the front of the boxes to reduce the size of the entrance holes and hopefully make it very difficult for Woodpeckers and squirrels to gain access.

We have had nest boxes in the woods for several years and they have been well used. However up until now we have not kept records of what birds use the boxes or the percentage of use. This year we have numbered the boxes and are recording their take up. We will be publishing the information on our webpage and be keeping you updated via this blog. In the meantime if you know of a couple of Blue Tits looking for a room, send them our way.

Rabbiting On

I've now had enough of the snow and slush. It's almost a week since I first went out with my camera, excited about the opportunity of photographing the woods in a covering of white. They are now a combination of slushy grey and muddy brown, so I don't think I'll bother with the camera on my next trip. 

What the snow did reveal was that the woods and adjoining meadow has a very active population of rabbits. I have noticed droppings on other visits but never seen one, probably because I am making too much noise. The rabbit tracks in the snow at the weekend reveal animals coming out of the woodland edge onto the meadow where they were digging away the snow to get at the grass and roots.

With rabbits legendary interest in procreation and the fact that doe's can have up to 60 young a year, it's a wonder that we are not overrun. The reality is that very few survive into adulthood. Young rabbits cannot defend themselves and are food for foxes, weasels and our resident tawny owls and buzzards.

Disease is another controller of rabbit population. Myxomatosis first appeared in the 1950's  and caused deaths on such a large scale that in some areas the army was called in to remove the corpses. The disease is now well established throughout the country and it's re-emergence from time to time prevents a resurgence in the population. Some rabbits now spend less time in burrows where disease spreads easily and live most of their lives above ground. There is some evidence that this is the case for some of Roundball's rabbits. If I'm correct, I bet I'm not the only one who has had enough of the snow and slush.

Green spaces turn White.

With a weekend of snow, Roundball Hill became one of the most popular places in town. The fields beneath Roundball have for generations been the place for sledging, and this weekend was no exception.  Dodging a multitude of children of all ages, I made my way up to the woods, admiring the many improvised sledge designs varying from recycling bin covers to old paddling pools.

With several inches of snow the wood looked magical. The white contrasting strongly with the brown of the mud! With the weather so cold I was not expecting to see any wildlife, but was pleasantly surprised. Although singing to defend territory was suspended in the search for food, there was an abundance of birdlife.  Long tailed tits, goldfinches and nuthatches were feeding in the trees, and blackbirds, a thrush and a robin were foraging in the ground disturbed by walkers. The resident buzzard was also using one of the trees to watch out for suitable prey. 

It is now common to see more birds in and around town than in the countryside and today was no exception.  Although you would expect the adventures on the slopes to drive off the birds, the opposite seemed to be the case. In the field below the woods was a large mixed flock of blackbirds, song thrushes and redwings. The birds were making the most of the ground disturbed by sledges and walkers to hunt for earthworms and insect larvae. The redwings are winter visitors from Scandinavia and there is a strong possibility that the blackbirds were also visitors from Northern Europe. 

The last time I slid down the hill was on an old fertiliser sack. However as these days my scrapes and bruises take longer to recover, I restricted myself to taking photographs and enjoying the wildlife of all descriptions on Honiton's white, green space. 

Don't forget your Wellies.

Roundball Wood has always been wet wood, but this year has seen it wetter than ever. Bad weather has stopped two of our wardens work days, but it has not stopped the many dog owners who use the wood and surrounding land to exercise their pets. Many times recently I have been in the woods and been greeted by a bounding Spaniel or Labrador, shortly followed by a mud splattered owner.  Many owners take their dogs down to the River Gissage at the end of their walk for a wash before they go home. Although I seem to get equally muddy, I have so far resisted the temptation of a dip in the Gissage.

As part of our work to make the wood more accessible the wardens have been building raised walkways. We have been coppicing some of the holly and cutting the main trunk in to short sections. We then lay the sections in the muddy parts and use them as a base for a raised walkway and hand rail. It seems to work well and is a reasonably priced solution to making the worst areas passable. We usually manage to lay 6 to 8 metres of walkway on a work morning, but have a way to go yet. It is also a way to recycle the coppiced holly and reduce the need to carry so much timber up the hill to the woods.

We are planning more work days later in the winter if the weather improves. In the mean time if you a thinking of a walk around the wood, don't forget your wellies.

Kissing is in Season

I noticed another plant flowering at Roundball today. The gorse bushes in the meadow at the top of the wood and on the slopes of the hill are coming out in flower.  There is an old country saying that 'When gorse is in blossom, kissing's in season'. The good news is that Western Gorse flowers from January to June and also sporadically throughout the year.  Once associated with common lands, moorland and cliff tops, it has become more common beside motorways and roadside verges. It is also increasing other areas of land due to a fall in grazing. 

Gorse is a member of the Pea (fabaceae) Family. If you can avoid the spines and get in close you can see the similarity of its flowers with those of the sweet peas in your garden. Later in the year you will notice the gorse setting seed in pea like pods, and on warm summer days you will also notice that the flowers give off a wonderful cocoanut like aroma.

Also known in Devon as 'Fuzz' or 'Furze', gorse once played an important part in in rural life. In past times it was a valuable source of fuel. Giving out intense heat, gorse was used in bakers ovens, for firing bricks and tiles and also used in lime kilns. Another use was as fodder. In hard winters, where other forms of food were in short supply gorse was crushed or chopped and fed to horses and cattle.

Being a plant of of common land and rough open spaces, Richard Mabey, in his book 'Flora Britannica' describes gorse as an area where lovers can meet and lose themselves in its dense thickets. The bad news is that if you try this on Roundball Hill, half of Honiton will be able to see you.

  

Red for Danger

Amongst our Christmas Cards was at least one with a picture of a robin. This seasonal bird is the one that everyone likes to see. The friendly robin that follows me when I’m working in Roundball Woods and who is there when I'm digging the garden. A very friendly bird. Unless that is, you are another Robin!

Robins are amongst the most territorial of all our woodland and garden birds. Defending a territory is initially done by singing to announce a presence and define the boundary of their area. However they will defend their patch with such ferocity that few intruding robins hang around for a fight. Robins will not only attack other robins, but will also have a go at anything red and robin sized. 

In my teens I remember reading David Lack’s book, ‘The Private Life of a Robin’, where after learning about their territorial behavior I carried out an experiment. I got a piece of red cloth, tied it around the top of a bamboo cane, and put it in the garden within site of our local Robin. Within seconds of me moving away our robin came down to the red cloth and proceeded to attack it until it was in pieces. No wonder other robins seldom hang around.

It is because of this fierce territorial behaviour that the only bird you are likely to hear singing throughout the year is the robin. Robins will even carry on singing at night if there are street lights or any other means of lighting their patch.

So... if you hear melodic birdsong after dark, or in the autumn and winter months, you should be able to impress your friends and family by identifying the song as that of a robin. Without even looking!

Singing in the Morning

Walking up to the woods at the weekend, it was good to hear a Song Thrush singing from the top of an oak tree. Along with other farmland and woodland birds there has been a serious decline in Thrush numbers from the 1960’s. Between 1970 and 1990 the species declined by 54% on farmland and 27% in woodland. The good news is that numbers have now stabilized, with a Devon breeding population now standing at 45,000 pairs. 

Song thrushes are particularly vulnerable to hard winters when frozen ground makes feeding difficult, but recent spells of mild winters have seen their numbers rise. They are partial migrants, with most birds remaining in their breeding area throughout the year. Some birds move south to France and Spain in the winter and are replaced by others moving south from Scotland. The chances are however that the bird I heard singing was a bird that decided to stay in Honiton over the winter.

The song thrush song is one of the most distinctive of all birds. Although the song is similar to that of the blackbird it can been clearly distinguished by the way the bird repeats phrases. Their song is much more complex than other members of the thrush family with individual birds having a repertoire of over 100 different phrases. At this time of the year they can be heard singing to stake out territories early in the morning with the rest of the day spend feeding. As the days draw out we expect to hear their fantastic song throughout the day.

One of the Roundball wardens, Dave Witt is our bird expert and responsible for the photo on this blog. We will be placing more of Dave’s bird photos on our webpage soon.

Hunt the Catkins

After mentioning hazel catkins in my first blog, they were difficult to find on my walk around the wood this morning.  I eventually located some at the top of the wood. Asking myself why they are there and not at the bottom of the wood, the answer is fairly obvious, the top of the wood faces South and has more light, encouraging plants to flower earlier. Together with holly, hazel forms the main under-storey of Roundball Wood and is one of the first trees to flower. Catkins, the flowers of the hazel, are around a long time before the tree starts to come into leaf. Trees such as hazel and alder are dependent on the wind rather than insects for pollination and get a head start in the process of setting seed.. Other plants rely almost entirely on insects and their flowering is much later, coinciding with the emergence of pollenating insects in the Spring.

There was one blackbird and a wren singing in the wood this morning setting territories very early. Other birds are very much in winter mode with finding food being the priority. Groups of coal tits and blue tits were making their way through the trees and much to my surprise there was a group of seven siskins in the alder trees. By far the largest group I have seen in the area.

Siskins are winter visitors which many of us see on our bird tables. In the past few years they have also been summer visitors with several pairs breeding in and around Honiton. The alders in the  wood provide a valuable food source for siskins and other seed eating birds. As well as being early flowering, alders retain their cones until early spring, and it was the seeds in the cones that were attracting the siskins.

New Year - New Blog

It's the beginning of January and the start of a new blog by the wardens of Roundball Wood, Honiton.

As anyone who has visited the wood knows, Roundball is a wet wood and after all the recent rain it is very wet underfoot. We have been working recently to improve the paths and avoid the wettest of spots by a system of raised walkways. The 1st of January 2013 saw some of us walking up to the woods carrying timber for our next work-day on Saturday 12th January. 

The steepness of the ground and its boggy nature means that most things have to be carried up, but it's good to get some physical activity after all the over-eating at Christmas  Our new raised walkways can be seen in the East of the woods and covers one of the worst areas of the path around the wood They are work in progress.

Its encouraging that so early in the spring you can already see new signs of life in the wood. Hazel has started to produce catkins and a pair of greater spotted woodpeckers were amongst the birds beginning to pair up prior to the breeding season. We will be fixing some new nest boxes soon and will hopefully report occupancy during the spring

We are currently looking at ways of sharing info on the woods to a wider public, and are planning the following

• Leaflets on the woods to be available at Honiton Bottom Bridge Gateway.
• A dedicated web page
• QR codes on the information boards to enable you to link to the webpage and this blog.
• Themed walks in the Spring
• Working with East Devon District Council Countryside Services to encourage local schools to use the wood as a resource

More details will be published on this blog and in the local press when they are available.