Different Habitats

 It occurred to me whilst I wasn't able to get out so much that I have never described the different habitats on our land. The rather odd shape of our place is roughly outlined in red on the google earth satellite photograph below. The land extends to about 6 acres in total or between 2 and 3 hectares.





Copse and Stream

I propose to look at the habitat in turn. At the Eastern boundary we have a couple of of copses . There are around 80 trees of different sizes. Norway Spruce, Scot's Pine, one large Ash tree, some beech, some Hawthorne, one or two damsons, and some blackthorn. Some of the older trees have ivy on them. A stretch of sream (about a 40m  length) separates the copse from the  bottom field.

On woodland floor in the copse are lots of snowdrops and then bluebells in the spring, and some wood anemone. When we arrived here over 10 years ago this bit of woodland was used as a toilet by badges marking their territory. I believe that badgers were "discouraged" by people running a local pheasant shoot and we haven't seen them at this site for some years. There are plenty of rabbits and my trail cams pick up wood mice here. 

In the tree canopy we get a variety of birds. There are always wrens, and we sometimes see gold crest and bull finch alongside the usual suspects.


I have mentioned earlier that the stream is known as a "sike" in this part of the World to indicate that from time to time the stream runs dry - although I suspect that on the limestone bed there is some water running underground.I have written earlier that we had a very dry spell this year when there was no water in the sike for at least three months. The stream attracts the occasional dipper and we often have a family of mallards on the Sike in the spring. I am sure that otters pass through and we have small fish (minnow I think) and some eels. In terms of invertebrates there are always freshwater shrimps when there is water in the sike and we get a good assortment of caddis fly larvae in their stony cases. We see the occasional mayfly nymph.




Diary
Overnight cameras were sighted near the house for the last few days. I have caught a number of red squirrel.some wood mice and a few rabbits on camera but not much else. We have had a light covering of snow ( mostly on the hills) but the temperature is forecast to well above seasonal norms by the end of the week.



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