Woodland Wellbeing – 1.v.24

 It was Mayday and the warmest day of the year so far, in my neck of the woods at least. On this occasion, the woods were a classic Atlantic oak woodland that cloaks a west-facing slope above the river Cree. Hence its name: the Wood of Cree! An RSPB reserve, it is famed for a suite of migrant songbirds that favour this habitat. I headed up the track from the main car-park and found myself among the trees in magical afternoon light. Swathes of bluebells were in flower, although not quite at their peak. Clumps of Stitchwort, Wood Anemone and Lesser Celandine added splashes of white and yellow. A verdant shag-pile of moss carpeted much of the ground, turning stumps, boulders, and fallen logs into amorphous hummocks. It takes plenty of rain to support such fecundity but this day was dry and sunny. The vivid green of freshly unfurled leaves highlighted the understorey of hazel and hawthorn with deeper pools of evergreen where thickets of holly grew. Above, the oaks were still bare, rising straight and tall in close formation. Coppicing and other commercial practises were carried out in this part of the wood until relatively recent times and larger veteran trees are few.

A zippy trilling song with slurred crescendo attracted my attention and led me along a narrow side-trail to my first encounter of the season with a Wood Warbler. There it was flitting through the branches, its white underparts gleaming in the sun with lemon-yellow washed over face and throat. Olive-green upperparts matched the newly emerged foliage among which the delicate little bird foraged for caterpillars and other invertebrates. Another sang nearby and I counted a total of 5 during my couple of hours wandering.

In a part of the wood with larger more widely-spaced oaks, I found my first Pied Flycatcher, a smart male. His white wing-bars flashed against otherwise black upperparts and the small white spots on his forehead were clearly visible, as he hopped about high up where trunks began to branch. Good views like that are harder to obtain later in the season when all the trees are in full leaf. I saw or heard several more of the flycatchers during my visit, including some of the browner female types and at least 4 males giving their up-and-down whistling song. Their Spotted cousins are found here too but they have yet to arrive back from Africa, often not appearing until well into May.

Redstart and Tree Pipit, the other western woodland specialists I hoped to see, eluded me this time. I probably need to go higher up the slope where the woods are more open with clearings and scrub. That will be the target for next time. Meanwhile, there were plenty of other birds busy with springtime activities. Blue Tits and Great Tits were particularly prominent, foraging industriously to feed young broods of chicks. A Cuckoo called in the distance, hoping to attract a passing mate. Mistle and Song Thrush sang from prominent vantage points, while Willow Warblers and Blackcaps marked their territories from deeper cover. A few Orange-tip butterflies were on the wing and large Dor beetles waddled along the ground on spiky legs looking for dung. Perhaps most remarkable of all was a Bank Vole that gave fabulous views as it scrambled up the stems of bluebells to feed on the flowers. As I returned to the car in warm evening sunshine, my legs felt tired but my mind was refreshed and revitalized, the precious value of a simple stroll in the woods.