This miniscule anenome type bloom is the female flower of the hazel. The tree's distinctive yellow lambs tail catkins are to be seen from late winter.and are one of the early signs that seasonal.change is on the horizon. I had the pleasure of having a go at hazel coppicing this week for the first time. The stools at the local nature reserve have been neglected for many years, but they are being brought back so that they can be cropped again. We collected several branches for stakes and binders which we will use next month to create another 30m of living hedge to extend what is already there on the site. Dormice eat hazel nuts and last year the volunteers ran a survey to see if there were any on the reserve. As many will be aware this species is in sharp decline and all the dormice boxes were empty so it didn't look promising. Tubes with ink at the bottom were placed at various points and the results are now in. Lots of dormice pawprints have been recorded. Let's finish February on a high!
Arilx
I now have a vision of lots of dormice hidden in the woodland happily blowing raspberries and sticking out their tongues at the people wandering around with clipboards and then wondering where all that black stuff on their feet came from....
ReplyDeleteThat's a really freaky photo!
ReplyDeleteLiz and Al did a course in hazel coppicing a few years ago an dtheir hedge they created looks amazing! xxx
I can remember watching (I think it was one of the BBC spring/autumn/winter watch) programmes and they used the 'ink traps' to see what was passing through - I remember they were monitoring mink populations along a river in Devon - and it was fascinating to see how often pawprints were left and how it was used to help identify species😊
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