Away from the coast, the hinterland of Suffolk is very rural, with few towns or settlements, but also one in which there are few designated nature reserves. Rolling field after rolling field offer a formidable barrier in the way to look for birds, like looking for a needle in a haystack, I could spend a lifetime searching all the footpaths of this rural land, and never see what I set out to see. It can be quite daunting looking for birds in the endless landscape. So it was that today I discovered some new countryside, just a small amount, but enough, out Hadleigh way. Lying west of Ipswich, around that small town are a couple of pockets of ancient woodland, Wolves Wood and Groton Wood, which offer a place to be able to contemplate nature, in the reassuring confines of a nature reserve.
As well as visiting those reserves I also planned to do a recce as part of the national Turtle Dove Survey. I was given a transect to monitor for this species, in an area between Ipswich and Hadleigh, around a village called Hintlesham. Today, being too early in the season for turtle doves, I just used it as a recon mission to have a look at the site I would be monitoring. Basically it was a golf course with not much habitat so it doesn't look too promising for the species. The turtle dove at the moment is hemorrhaging its population, with numbers plummeting year on year, mainly due to habitat destruction here and hunting on its migration routes. In the not too distant past it was fairly common in Suffolk, but nowadays it is quite rare, locally centred on the last remnants of suitable habitat. In a few weeks time I shall return, do the survey and upload my results to help gain some information on the species.
After that I went to have a look at the woods.
Wolves Wood
Along the Hadleigh road, Wolves Wood is a sizeable chunk of ancient woodland owned by the RSPB. Like a lot of ancient woodland it has a large amount of coppicing, a rural industry that provided charcoal for fires in olden times. Coppicing is basically the ancient art of cutting trees back on yearly cycles, with the trees growing back, but even thicker, ready to be cut down again. This opens the woods up making sure light rains down from the canopy, making the wood more beneficial to light loving wildlife. Along side the coppice, certain trees have been allowed to mature, growing taller than the coppice, reaching for the sky, again providing a different source of habitat for more wildlife. As well as this the forest provides sunny glades, rides and ponds, a complex interplay of different habitats that make up an ancient forest, a million miles away from those lifeless conifer plantations which are so much more common.
At this time of year birdsong is at its peak, and it was good just to listen to the music being conducted within the forest. There is so much going on with this cacophony of sound that even my trained ear can be overwhelmed. Nothing unusual was about but even the most common of birds can have a beautiful voice. My favourite is the SONG THRUSH, a bird that belts out its song from a bushy thicket, a song that changes every two beats, a song so bewildering, so unique, that it takes you onto a sonic journey. Its just so pleasant to just stand and listen for a while just embracing the forest's sounds, a sound that connects me back with an ancient self, before civilisation.
At this time of year our woodlands are aglow with bluebells. However due to certain reasons Wolves and Groton Woods do not have this display. This is because the blue carpet of bluebells is something artificial, the result of an exploding population of deer. Natural, ancient woods have a hierarchy of thick layers from the canopy down, but as deer browse the forests they eat everything in their reach, resulting in empty layers of nothing beneath the canopy. Bluebells survive because they are toxic to deer and so end up being the only plant left to flower. In Wolves and Groton Woods, deer are controlled, and fences are put round the coppicing to protect from browsing, which results in a thick understory of young trees and bushes, which means the understorey is dominated by brambles. By controlled I mean culled, which again is a massive ethical question. As usual its the result of man meddling in the environment. Yes its good that deer populations are at an historic high, but its bad that they put such a strain on the environment.
Groton Wood
This Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve is really out in the countryside, along single track roads through lost villages and acres of rolling countryside. This was my first visit to the site, I thought I might dare to visit being in the area and all. In many ways its superficially like Wolves Wood, both being excellently managed pockets of ancient woodland. But comparing these vast reservoirs of life is a folly as they are just so different. There are acres of coppice, rides aerate through the trees, and ponds and glades open up the canopy. It was in one glade where I found the only stand of naturally occurring BLUEBELLS, a carpet of blue beauty like rain drops appearing amongst the grass.
Its amazing to think that parts of Groton Wood has been tree covered since the ice age, thousands and thousands of years of tree cover, an area that has withstood the ravages time. These woods are so full of life compared to the surrounding fields, an area that embraces nature rather than fights it. Imagine being a giant, being able to rip the woods from the land and then to upend it and shake it, imagine all the life that would fall out, all the animals, birds and insects. Just this small wood on its own is breathtaking.
These ancient woodlands are like a wildlife version of Stonehenge and are just as ancient, just as precious, and under the various wildlife charities are better protected. They are hidden gems, I barely saw anyone in either wood, great places in which to revel in nature, to breath in their timeless qualities. And like any dynamic living system the wood is always on the move, changing constantly through the seasons. The only drawback, however is that they sit there on their own, all alone in a countryside, surrounded by arable fields, isolated from one another. Not matter how big they seem, these relics of woodland are no bigger than an arable field, mere pin pricks in the countryside. We need more, and we need them to be connected, just so everyone can experience their majesty and have space to immerse.
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