Our winter work programme continues with more work in our woodlands and a few other tasks too.

We continued with and finished the coupe on the steep slopes of Coed Simdde Lwyd. It’s a hard but satisfying job. This one seems to be on a particularly steep section and took longer than usual to complete. It will allow more light down to the woodland floor and hopefully encourage new saplings to grow.

We’ve also continued our general woodland thinning in Coed Maidie B Goddard and cleared scrub along a field edge. There were a few overhanging trees and branches that needed our attention too.

Volunteers at Coed Maidie B Goddard

The roadside trees at Rhos Glandenys had grown rather a lot and were starting to impede on the road and upset the locals so we spent a few days in high vis jackets cutting them right back and stacking the cuttings on the reserve. We also cut back some of the meadow edge willows and a broken branch near the entrance gate. There was a beautiful double rainbow on the first day when the sun came out between the sleet, hail and downpours.

At Cwm Clettwr we halo thinned some more of the birch and willow around the young oaks, hazels and rowans that are growing in the regenerating areas in the upper half of the reserve. We have tried a new technique for the reserve in some of the area where there is little understorey- trees are cut higher than usual, left with a small hinge and allowed to lay across the open spaces to create more aerial pathways within the woodland whilst still allowing more light to the favoured trees.

Where possible these trees overlap creating a web across the woodland which should benefit the dormice. Some of these may re-shoot and others will form dead hedge corridors for mammal movements. Hopefully a more natural under-storey will also develop benefiting the woodland as a whole.

A day was also spent clearing the birch regeneration from the healthy outcrop to preserve the habitat mosaic. The heather is almost waist high so it’s tough going!

We also cleared a lot more fallen trees along the back fence-line in Coed Penglanowen and one that had fallen across the path.

We will be continuing with this kind of work for a few more weeks before we move onto spring tasks.
Thank you very much to everyone who has helped this month. If you would like to volunteer with us in Ceredigion there are work parties on a Wednesday and Thursday out on the reserves, year round, contact Em on 07980932332 or e.foot@welshwildlife.org or to find out more about Ceredigion reserves