Friday night is Palmate night!

Taking a night off from professional newt surveys, we hosted an event for the Friends of Seckar Wood and North, East and West Yorkshire Amphibian and Reptile Group, surveying ponds at Seckar Wood for the locally scarce palmate newt (Lissotriton helveticus).

Slightly smaller than the much more common smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris), they only a occur in a handful of ponds in the Wakefield district, having a generally more westerly distribution across the UK. They favour ponds with neutral to very slightly acidic pH, often associated with heathland, moorland and open woodland (all habitats present in Seckar Wood!).

The male has webbed hind feet as well as a small filament at the end of the tail. The female looks superficially like a smooth newt but lacks spots under the chin and has a pale mark above each of the hind legs.

Our efforts on Friday evening were rewarded with views of several palmate newts by torchlight. Bottle traps were left overnight but only produced a single male who was quite cooperative in posing for a photograph.



Male palmate newt from Seckar Wood LNR SSSI

Weekend in the Woods 2013

We've spent the last couple of days attending the annual "Weekend in the Woods", organised by the Coppice Association North West, where we were able to learn new woodland craft skills in a beautiful (if slightly damp!) South Lakes woodland near Newby Bridge. This was our second year here, having learnt so much at least years' event. It's a great place to go if you're new to green woodwork and want to learn from experienced woodland crafts people.


The fruits of our labour!

This year Gareth was on the cleft gate hurdle course run by Mike Carswell of Urban Coppice, a Manchester based coppice worker and graduate of the Bill Hogarth MBE Memorial Apprenticeship Trust. Like woven hurdles, gate hurdles were traditionally used to create temporary pens for livestock, with different designs and dimensions depending on the type of livestock as well as regional variations. Having been replaced in their traditional agricultural use by tubular steel gates they are now more commonly used in the garden as gates and fencing, giving a truly rustic look to your cottage garden!

They are usually made from ash, oak or in this case sweet chestnut, which Mike had harvested from one of his woodlands. The aim is to make a strong hurdle which is as light as possible. Much of the strength comes from the cleft wood, split using a froe, which maintains the fibres of the wood along its length. Gareth made two (and a half!) hurdles over the weekend, a third being partially complete pending some tweaking at home!

Maria learnt how to turn bowls on the pole lathe with Peter Wood, a green wood worker based in County Durham. Starting with a sycamore log which is then cleft in two, the basic outer shape of the bowl is roughed out using a carving axe. The piece is then attached to a mandrel (a turned shaft with spikes in the end) and put on the pole lathe, the drive cord being wound around the mandrel. The turning then commences!


The mandrel - used to hold the bowl on the lathe and to drive the piece.

The bowl carving tool is longer than most of our other pole lathe tools which allows you to hollow out the inside of the bowl. After two days of axing and turning (and lots or treadling!) Maria made two bowls which are now slowly seasoning at home. 

In time we hope to add these products to our range, made from wood from our coppicing here in South Yorkshire!

Roding on the railway

Last night we did our first woodcock survey at a local country park as part of a national voluntary survey being coordinated by the British Trust for Ornithology and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

Woodcock are the only wading bird in Britain to be adapted to breed in woodland and their range is thought to have declined since the 1968-72 Breeding Atlas (Sharrock 1976). The first national survey was undertaken in 2003 and our survey site is one of the 805 high priority sites, being a repeat survey.

The survey involves spending 75 minutes around dusk at a fixed count point, the number of "roding" male woodcock are recorded during the survey in order to give an estimate of numbers.

Our count point is located on a disused railway viaduct over a small wooded valley connecting the country park to another nature reserve with woodland and heathland (excellent woodcock habitat!). We were treated to some fabulous views of woodcock roding; flying along at tree top height, calling and turning their heads looking for any interested females. Although our males seemed to only be versing the "swick" part of the call last night. Perhaps, like the weather, they've not properly warmed up yet?!