Today we’ve been taking out some of the ‘medium’ standards in the coup. I put quotation marks around medium because they look bloody huge to me!
Bringing these ‘medium’ trees down will allow more light onto the woodland floor, a floor that is already showing signs of Bluebells.
It can seem like a harsh practice to the casual onlooker. Surely trees are sacred and need to be protected? It’s true, they are and they do. Which is why its great when weaker trees with signs a disease and rot are chosen. The elderly birch that fell today hardly had any stump left on the ground, only being held up my it’s buttresses, and this is obviously dangerous. However, it can just sometimes be the tree that will let in the most light into the coup.
As well as the flowers, the other clear benefit (no pun intended) of a Coppice woodland, compared to an unmanaged dark and murky woods, is the proliferation of small birds.
Furzefield is covered in tiny birds. Everytime we fell a tree or disturb some leaf litter were followed by a handful of robins checking out to see what the hell we’ve been doing to their territory and is there anything new to eat. Gangs of bluetits mosey on by and various other tiny hoppers, which I can’t identify, also fill the branches. The whole woodland is alive with birdsong that, ok you can’t really hear while the chainsaw is going, but as soon as we swap the saw for the billhook it’s clear that this is a very popular place indeed.
Fact Corner:
For commercial aka simple Coppice the ideal is to have no standards at all in a coup. This will produce the finest Coppice material. But usually, especially in this country, Coppice with standards is the norm. In this case the ideal is 10-20% canopy cover and goes up to 20-30% when you want to leave enough for the wildlife. Having a variety of ages and sizes of stands is also good to consider so that you have a constant flow of younger trees replacing the older ones. Standing wood, when the tree dies and you leave it up, makes great homes for all sorts of things and doesn’t stop the light from reaching the Coppice.
