BTCV blogs

Last Friday my colleagues from Conservation Volunteers and I worked at Cave Hill, high above Belfast. Part of this area is a "mixed ashwood", although predominately hazel, and a very important place for wildlife and a priority habitat.

To help this wood, called "Hazelwood", and improve it, we coppiced some of the hazel trees and built little fences around the trunk (called a "stool") to protect them from being eaten by rabbits. The pruning stops the hazel trees from growing too tall, whcih can cause them to fall over because they get a bit top heavy.

It also creates a good age mixture of the trees in the woodland. That itself supports BIODIVERSITY. The freshly coppiced areas, for example, leave room and light for wild flowers, whereas the older trees provide food and living space for squirrels and other animals.

This work is necessary every year and can only be done in winter in order to protect nesting birds.

Our day started sunny but cold when we parked in front of Belfast Zoo and started to carry the materials up the hill, which was completely exhausting! We worked in two teams and the building went on quicker than expected. In my break I enjoyed the view across Belfast Lough.

Later some snow showers appeared and made work a little harder. Nevertheless we did well. And what is this little effort in comparison to seeing the progress and improvement of the habitat?

Tomorrow I will be at the hill again to continue the work and I am sure some other days as well. Beside the protection of the hazel, some other work needs to be done in this area. The native trees are under pressure from non-native, invasive ones, like Sycamore.

When you go for a walk around there the next time, look for our hazel and enjoy seeing it grow!

Take care (for the environment)

Laura