On 13 November 2013, the Lime Kiln Wood Trust took part in the Grange Fell Care Day, which was organised by Friends of the Lake District and a host of other local conservation organisations. We were blessed with about a dozen willing adult volunteers, plus a host of enthusiastic children from Lindale School, all ably coordinated by Richard Scott, Sally Varian, Adrienne King and Martin Wain. The volunteers tackled our third year coppice with enthusiasm, as well as pulling up stacks of unwanted beech seedlings. Many thanks to everyone concerned – it was a very successful day and well demonstrated how much one can do with well-organised volunteers. We hope this experiment will be repeated next year in collaboration with other woodland owners in the area including the Cumbria Wildlife Trust and the Forestry Commission.

The Lime Kiln Wood Trust is keen to encourage local people to enjoy and understand the woodland on their doorstep, and as part of that process, we are beginning to work with Lindale Primary School. The school is only a short walk from Lime Kiln Wood, along a footpath, and teachers are already using the wood as a learning space for the children (you may have noticed some dens being built…). On 15 July, we took this one step further and led a walk around the wood with the older children at the school. We chatted about a range of topics, and answered many questions posed by the children, most of whom were already impressively familiar with several aspects of the natural world. Some of the things we talked about included the age of the wood (and how we know it’s old), the species of plants and animals it contains (and why their biodiversity is important), and how the wood has been useful to people throughout history. Finally, we showed the children round the newly-coppiced areas and explained how the wood is being managed to improve its value as a wildlife habitat. During this walk, we became increasingly impressed with the enthusiasm and knowledge of the Lindale School children, and we are already making plans to continue these contacts. For example, we are planning to assist them during the autumn term with some woodland art, and hope to post some of the resulting work on this website.

Later in the year, Grange Conservation Volunteer Day will be held on Wednesday 13 November, and we hope to involve volunteers, including school-children, in one or more aspects of practical woodland management. If you are interested in getting involved with the Volunteer Day, please contact Tania Crockett at RSPB Leighton Moss tania.crockett@rspb.org.uk .

Since Lime Kiln Wood was taken over by the LKW Trust, we have tended to focus on the plant life, mainly because of the need to reduce shading in order to encourage the ground flora. However, the ultimate point of our management activities is not only to improve the biodiversity of plants but also of the animals which depend on them.

We are now starting the long process of finding out what animals live in the wood. First of all, we have been helped by a number of experts in the South Westmorland Bat Group who have already identified three species of bats in Lime Kiln Wood – pipistrelles, soprano pipistrelles, and brown long-eared bats. We are beginning to find out about potential bat roosts, but there are relatively few suitable tree holes and crevices, so we suspect that most of the bats hide during the day in gaps between stones in the drystone walls, and maybe even down the limestone grykes.

Of the larger mammals, roe deer are common and exert a degree of grazing pressure, which is why we have starting temporarily fencing off the coppice coupes to protect the re-growing hazel. Badgers use the wood, but we don’t think there are any setts within our boundary. Foxes traverse the glades on a regular basis, and we have a resident population of grey squirrels – no reds have yet been sighted, unfortunately.

Now we are turning our attentions to the birds, with the help of a local expert – Jamie Green. We plan to conduct a regular bird census, and would welcome any reports of interesting bird sightings that wood users make. This spring, Jamie has so far carried out two bird surveys, and the list is already of respectable length:-

We hope that later surveys this spring and summer will lengthen this list considerably. We know that our programme of bird box installations is already beginning to attract occupants – those put up last year have been used by a variety of species, and we are also planning to install some bat boxes. Finally, we plan to start surveying some of the invertebrates (especially butterflies and moths), and would like to get in touch with any local experts who could help…..

Update on work at Lime Kiln Wood

We are delighted to say that the bulk of this year’s conservation work has been completed at the wood during the dormant season, although the very wet weather delayed us somewhat.

As you will see when you next visit, our contractor has helped open the canopy with the removal of some of the encroaching sycamore trees and we have also eliminated a few others that were deemed dangerous to the public by our local advisor.

Visitors will now see a second coppiced area. This is part of a 5-year rotational scheme as stated in our strategic plan (see the website). To help with protecting new growth from the high incidence of damage by roe deer, we have temporarily excluded them from the coppice coupe with a black mesh fence. This has been marked with some black and yellow warning streamers, and we hope the fence will allow swifter regeneration of the area over the next two years, after which it will be removed and reused elsewhere.

We have increased the number of bird boxes and have noted that those installed last year had been occupied. We also have a plan to add some bat roosting boxes under advice from our local Bat Group.

Spring is here (almost) and we expect to see a whole new carpet of flora this year which will cheer us all up after a damp and sustained autumn and winter.

During the summer months we will continue to repair and refurbish the dry stone walls and we hope that everyone will enjoy the wood as we are bringing it back to robust health.

Work is continuing on our programme to improve the biodiversity of Lime Kiln Wood, as originally announced in November 2012 (see below). Progress has been somewhat delayed due to the very wet weather, but a second area of hazel has now been coppiced, and thinning out or ring-barking of some sycamores is under way when ground conditions permit. We will be temporarily fencing off the second coppice in February to protect the young hazel shoots from deer browsing. We have also felled a large beech on the cross-path that was found to be partly rotten and in a dangerous condition. Finally, we are erecting many more bird boxes on suitable trees. Concern has been expressed that we are damaging the wood, but we are assured that the surface scars will soon heal and the biodiversity of the wood will improve very quickly over the next few years. We have also had helpful comments about potential dangers from felled branches hung up in trees, and we have tightened up our operating procedures as a result. We continue to welcome comments – both positive and negative – from wood users, and look forward to meeting you in the wood sometime when the weather improves.