Narrows Wood

NEWS UPDATE MAY 2026 We have been busy since our last update in March The Damage cage is still being used as the temporary repair is holding up OK. Unfortunately we have been busy with other work so have not started replacing the cage yet but hope to between now & next year with a permanent Shed for Research.    We have been very busy this spring in the orchard and have planted a total of 18 fruit trees in our orchard. The Orchard is doing well & some of the fruit trees have blossomed & setting fruit. We have netted a 1/3 of the trees to protect the fruit & waiting for the others to blossom. The orchard has also been home to a small colony of rabbits. We are monitoring the Orchard to keep an eye on the rabbits and other wildlife.  Last year we were unsuccessful with Pied Flycatchers spotting only one pair which failed to nest at our site.  We are also hoping for a better breeding Season for the Pied Flycatchers as we installed 24 new nest boxed last y...

  News for March 2026 This year started off not very good for Us. January was a sad time for me as my Father Past Away the first week of January from Cancer. Also this month we had bad winter storms at our Woodland with heavy Snows. The Snows damaged our Storage Cage up at the woodland with the roof collapsing in the middle due to the weight of the snow. Due to the Damage I have temporarily repaired it with the aid of a long stick to prop up the roof for now until I can install a new Cage. We will also be replacing it with a Permanent Wooden Shed so that we can continue our Wildlife conservation work on site. We have also planted another 3 fruit trees this month making a total of 14 fruit trees in our orchard.  The orchard has also been home to a small colony of rabbits so we have had to make sure our trees are protected with tree guards to stop them damaging our fruit trees.  We are also hoping for a better breeding Season for the Pied Flycatchers as we installed 24 new ...

November News 2025  Update   It's been awhile since the last update on the wood. We have now started Work this Autumn on coppicing our Hazel trees, and have divided the wood up in to four Coupes or Areas to concentrate on getting our understory trees back in to rotation. Each coupe a fairly large so will take time to restore each area back into rotation. This Autumn we have started down in the Orchard which is the Lower part of Coupe 1 and has many old Hazel trees in this area. So far this year we have managed to coppice 6 trees back in to rotation, But there are at least another 8 or more to coppice in this area which may have to wait now till next Autumn. The coppiced wood has been put in our storage cage to season to make some products like walking sticks. This Winter we are going to grow some more wild flowers which we hope to plant out when they are ready in the woodland helping restore some of our rare native woodland flowers. See our wild flower project for more info. ...

News for April In April we will be starting a new wild flower project. We have ordered 420 bulbs from  garden supply direct   100 native double headed daffodils bulbs in the green Unfortunately they had no double heads in stock but gave us extra Wild Daffodils. So ended up with about  500 native wild daffodils bulbs in the green 200 wild garlic bulbs in the green 20 snakehead fritillary bulbs in the green. This will be done to help Boost the wild population of Native woodland flowers. see our wildflowers project page for more info. Orchard Update. Our Orchard is starting to Establish after last year & this years Planting. morello cherry 1 tree, opal plum 1 tree,doyenne du comice pear 2 trees ,jonagold apple 2 trees ,Other Apples 2 trees ,victoria plum 1 tree & stella cherry 1 tree tree. We will be planting marbella golden sphere plum 1 tree to add to our Orchard this week. Taking our Fruit Trees to 13 trees plus a couple of Black Current Bushes have been Establish...

  March News 2025 Spring is here our wild daffodils are out!  New Nest boxes have been installed ready for the Pied Flycatcher nesting Season. The Older boxes have also been relocated a bit Higher up the trees also to stop predation from Feral cats. It is hoped that we will have a good song bird nesting season this year. We have also got control of the Grey Squirrel Population reducing there number with in our wood which should also reduce Squirrel tree damage & Song Bird Nest Predation from squirrels.    Old nest boxes moved higher up the trees Also New this season we have installed 10 Trial Dormouse Nest Tubes to see if we have the endangered Dormice living in the wood. If we do then we may consider getting Advice from a local Dormouse group in monitoring and providing nest boxes to protect these elusive little animals. Dormouse Nest Tubes installed for the Endangered Dormice  We have been given by a Neighbouring woodland owner over 100+ Hazel saplings whi...

January 2025 News Update February 2024 we installed 5 Bat boxes & 8 Bird Boxes to replace the old ones. Unfortunately during the Nesting Season in the summer a feral cat managed to get in to one of the pied flycatcher boxes and we lost the young from the box. So we have had to move the boxes Higher up the tree so that its more difficult for a predator like a cat to reach the boxes this coming season. Unfortunately the Hedgehog boxes we installed did not survive the winter.  Feral Cat In the summer of last year we had major problems with Giant Hog weed which we had to deal with and eradicate from the woodland boundary to stop it spreading. Hog Weed      Autumn we also had problems in our work shed with the shelving getting damp and moldy so we had to replace the shelving with metal ones. October we had a Willow tree come down across the Track during wet weather. Fortunately our woodland Neighbour managed to remove it for Us as we could not get to the woods due to ...