Who I am – Scottish with a fascination for wildlife from childhood – in lieu of formal qualifications (and not being able to flash them about!) – was on the 1990 International Youth Conservation Exchange to Hungary, was the 1993 winner of the BBC Wildlife Magazine ‘Realms of the Russian Bear’ competition and spent nearly two weeks in the Aksu Zhabagly Reserve in Kazakhstan as the prize – found the local stomach bug was much more dangerous than the brown bears. Especially interested in the removal of invasive non native plants and conservation of dead wood and trees and associated fauna/flora as conservation issues – my personal experience suggests they are badly neglected topics. My main background is in recycling and waste reduction.
Les’s previous guest blog here was in September 2018, Driven Grouse Shooting – your bluff’s been called (which is worth a re-read as things have moved on). He also has a live petition to the Scottish Parliament, PE01850: Natural flood prevention on grouse moors, which you could sign right up until 4 March.
‘The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley,’….especially during a sodding pandemic. If it hadn’t been for Covid 19 by now the efforts of yours truly, a very kind film maker donating his time, volunteers and a couple of glove puppets the cinematic epic ‘Love Hedgehogs Don’t Burn Brash’ would have been unleashed upon the world rather than a nasty virus.
It’s surprising the amount of practical conservation work that involves cutting trees down and up rather than planting them – preventing encroachment on peat bogs and meadows, keeping paths clear, letting more light in for ground flora and of course clearing non native invasive shrubs and trees. The brash is the smaller twigs and branches that result from sawing them off from the main trunk to give workers room to move and enable handling of material.
Brash is most definitely not rubbish, it still constitutes dead wood of which there is a terrible deficit in the vast majority of our woodlands. When stacked up in what are known as habitat piles (and sometimes ‘dead hedges’) it can spend literally decades providing hibernating space for amphibians and hedgehogs, nesting places for wrens, robins, dunnocks and even song thrushes. Countless invertebrates and fungi will move in and slowly rot woody material down helping to create biodiverse soils for the next generation of trees and generally recycling nutrients for all forest life. The practice of creating habitat piles is increasing, but very sadly even with many conservation projects brash is still burnt for the jolly old stereotypical campfire with the breaking out of the end of session biscuits and cups of tea (old bits of pallet or offcuts could have been brought in for this instead of course).
Occasionally there is a good reason for some burning especially when invasives are being cleared and there’s just far too much material to accommodate in piles – plus some species such as cherry and Portugese laurel can re-root from a cut branch left on damp ground. However, the vast majority of the brash you see going up in smoke in those pictures of grinning volunteers around a roaring bonfire didn’t have to become a wildlife unfriendly pile of ash – when, like me, you’ve seen birds desperate for nesting places fly in to inspect a habitat pile literally minutes after you’ve made it seeing it incinerated elsewhere makes your heart sink to your feet.
Our plan with the video was to emphasise why habitat piles are really important for wildlife by adding little touches to hopefully enhance their value for invertebrates, fungi, birds and hedgehogs – they would incorporate mini ‘log cabins’ for the latter no less. It would be especially good at explaining to children why habitat piles are great for wildlife and be considerably more interesting then just piling up brash, even though that’s still great. Sadly until covid related restrictions are eased this notification of our intentions will have to suffice until the full fruit of them can be presented on the world stage. However, there’s one element of the ‘new’ habitat piles that can be highlighted here thanks to a rather wonderful accident I only wish I’d taken a better photo of as it’s such a beautiful illustration of it.
I was walking back home from a shopping trip and decided to turn off down a slightly longer, but more scenic route. A couple of days beforehand we’d been hit with some very high winds so no great surprise to see that a smallish branch snapped off by them had been caught on top of a railing. As I walked past it out of the very corner of my eye I caught a flash of deep red that was so out of place I automatically stopped, swung round and looked more closely. Straight lines and edges are virtually unknown in nature and as the branch had been snapped by wind not cut by bow or pruning saw its end was broken, jaggy. It was down into one of the many niches created by the splintered wood that two ladybirds had crawled for shelter. They just would not have been able to do this with the utterly flush cut ends seen on the branches that are often used in the log and habitat piles that are supposed to help wildlife, it’s been very disheartening to have seen such in the likes of Nature’s Home.
This little incident graphically illustrated why this isn’t merely a form of Victor Meldrew negativity and pedantry on my part, something I’d occasionally wondered about with a little guilt. Coloration meant to advertise distastefulness to would be predators had incidentally emphasised the value of recesses to the wildlife that one way or another uses the structure provided by dead wood.
Bark helps protect the living tree from insect and fungal attack, so exposed wood is especially important in allowing the process of decay and deconstruction to begin as part of the natural recycling process. Jagged, natural ends win hands down, first of all they present a much larger surface area of exposed wood than an artificially cut one, and then of course it has gaps/niches for inverts to crawl into and fungal spores to get lodged in out of the drying sun and grasping wind.
The fact that a small broken branch stuck on top of a railing brought me such a burst of joy and renewed enthusiasm is I suggest indicative of the wonders of nature rather than personal inadequacy on the part of yours truly. Certainly life is far, far too short and precious not to fill up as many gaps in it as possible with something special to make you realise how wonderful it is. This is what I think nature is fantastic, insuperable for even with a third rate field naturalist like me.
How in hell did that woodpecker know the broken top of the dead tree is a fantastic place for drumming? That wee bird struggling on the ground can’t possibly be a little auk this is Callander Park, Falkirk halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh…good god no it really is a little auk! There are ants going up and down the trunk of this coppiced sycamore they must be collecting honeydew from aphids. Where are the aphids most likely to be – on the fresh young leaves that are most tender and the most nutrient rich sap? Yeah, when I checked the youngest leaves first the undersides were dark with solid masses of aphids, there wasn’t a single one to be seen elsewhere. A tiny, tiny thing, but special to me as I felt like David Attenborough for a day which was brilliant for a shy, speccy kid entering his teens. There are dozens, hundreds more that mean nothing to anybody else, but everything to me.
Anyway enough musings there’s the practical issue of how are we going to replicate these important jaggy ends if we are cutting shrubs and trees on a conservation project? Well there’s no full solution, but there are a few things you can try. You can quickly take your saw and score a few V shaped notches along the topside of the length of branch you are about to cut – big enough for fungal spores and an egg laying space for inverts hopefully. When I cut through the wood I wait until I’m a third or halfway through then snap off the rest so you get a partly broken end. That also leaves a partly jagged end on the next section of the branch still to be cut of course. A word of caution branches can be ‘whippy’ and even with glasses I’ve had the end of thin branches slam round and poke me in the eye. If they have splintered ends, that’s making it worse. I always use goggles now even though that can look over the top.
Another method might be to carefully snap cut branches in two, perhaps round an upright length of wood or metal knocked into the ground so everything is well away from the face and gloves are always a good idea when handling splintered wood. For what’s already been cut with a flush face then a drill making a few holes in it would be a considerable improvement. If they are drilled in at various angles some will stay dry others will become damp. Different inverts have different requirements and even in Britain there are some species which can only live in the wet rot holes you get in old trees. Anything but the pristine, immaculately clean cut ends you still see on too many pictures in wildlife books, magazines, digital media of supposed habitat and log piles.
It will all be so much easier to express when ‘Love Hedgehogs, Don’t Burn Brash’ is available, it’s needed. Big strides have been made, I have been very pleasantly surprised at how progressive many canal restoration groups are in dealing with the significant amount of cut down trees and brash they inevitably produce – the excellent Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust deserves a special mention for this. The bonfire is rapidly becoming a no no in the canal restoration world, I’d even say that they’re putting quite a few ‘conservation’ groups who still seem to be addicted to them to shame.
Nonetheless, not one point raised here hasn’t been known somewhere for decades. It shouldn’t be taking donkey’s years for brash to become wildlife habitat rather than ash, or for that matter for us to finally start getting wild meadow areas in local parks. Where’s the pro-activity, the enthusiasm for promoting good conservation practice to the public, doing our job? On occasion it isn’t even being pushed within the conservation community itself.
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Great blog Les. I hope that the relaxation of covid restrictions will soon allow your best laid plans to gang back on course with regards to the ‘Love hedgehogs’ video.
Thanks – it’s an expatriate Italian film maker who’s really making this possible, he already made a video for free about the litter problem in our district, great bloke. It will be SO much easier trying to make points in a video. Mind you the longer it’s delayed the better your thoughts come together as to making it work.
Do ‘third rate naturalists’ get off on a couple of ladybirds? Do they even spot them?
Like this blog a lot. It highlights many things that have also annoyed me over the years. Nothing in our garden is wasted or burnt, our enormous compost heap has been home to hedgehogs and grass snakes to name but two. Anything that has to be cut down or pruned back is immediately added to umpteen brash piles around the garden.
Yesterday was pond day. (Go online to try and find advice on the best time to work on a pond and there is never a good time. You will always disturb something whenever). I looked up from clearing last year’s reeds etc to see three Brimstones flying. This is Lincolnshire, 24h Feb, last week under deep snowdrifts! That sighting made my day. A reward for hard work and trying to do what you think is right in your own small patch.
Your blog also highlighted something else. Few of us on here know each other, but it is still a community. We think we know a little of each other via comments over the years. A club almost.
Lose this site because the boss needs a well earned break and we lose Wallace (both), Jbc, Parsons, Alan, Leslie, Cobb, etc.
That’s a big hole to fill. I shall miss that.
“A club almost”
That is a very pertinent point. I occasionally wonder where people are that have left:
Trimbush – I was waiting with bated breath for the revelatory report about badgers but …. never came
Doug McFarlane – disappeared without trace although his wildlife photography site still exists
I truly am third rate – identifying bird song is a complete mystery to me and I really have tried to learn. I’m especially interested in the life that depends on deadwood, but I don’t have an iota of specialist knowledge about it – I just know it must be in trouble because there’s a massive, unnatural deadwood deficit in practically all our woods. However, the point is that it doesn’t stop me from appreciating nature as much as D.Attenborough or C.Packham we’re all in the premier division in that respect and they’ve said so themselves. The other point is just a basic insight into ecology and you can see why conservation is failing badly, even conservation organisations are shying away from subject matter that becomes tricky – in this case ‘unsightly’ dead and decaying wood.
Skidding logs deeply will lift bark quicker and produce a number of crevices quickly, I once was involved in a planning enforcement notice, that meant removing large oak timber half buried in the ground intentionally, having to be removed, whilst removing them what did we find stag beetle grubs as planned, due to planning that chalk grassland is no longer managed and the birds foot trefoil along with the Timothy grass has been push out by long grass and the common blue butterfly is no more. The whole project was to manage old over stood woodlands needing somewhere to store and naturally dry out the useable timber, allot of brush was also left in piles, but most private garden householders wanted it all cleared away, as brush looked untidy and out of place??!!!
Man must learn or he will suffer, clean and tidy is bad, it is an alien environment so bacteria and viruses can mutate to adapt to such conditions.
You’re not kidding about public response to the sight of deadwood in its various forms. I’ve commented on it before, but since it’s relevant I can’t resist mentioning the septuagenarian who effectively followed me as I was clearing invasive cherry laurel to cut up and remove the deadwood that had previously been lying unseen under the evergreen foliage. He literally loathed the sight of it, definitely a bad case of OCD. He used a chainsaw without any safety gear and when a local fourteen year old who had their own chainsaw asked to join in the old guy was more than happy for the help. Yes a fourteen year old without safety gear was encouraged to chainsaw dead trees. I had a quiet word with the council and they delicately put a stop to it. No surprise anybody trying to question the old fellah’s actions was met with an extremely vehement reaction.
It’s easy to see how people like him who literally foam at the mouth over their pet hate get to dominate public forums and consultation processes. All too easy for the authorities to decide they’ll take the easy road and acquiesce to what they know makes no conservation sense, and understandable that conservation organisations are reluctant to tackle this ‘public’ opinion. Understandable, but not acceptable they need to stick to their guns and counter this. In the very same wood in which I got that grief I spoke to an older lady who told me when she brought her little grand daughter there the first thing she would do is rush over to a piece of wood lying on the ground and turn it over to see the creepy crawlies underneath. When we give in to the loudmouths we’re reducing the scope for kids to experience and learn about nature. The conservation community needs to play that card in the public arena, it’s an entirely legitimate and winning one we’re just not using at the moment.
“It’s easy to see how people like him who literally foam at the mouth over their pet hate get to dominate public forums and consultation processes”
I’ve noticed this
I looked at one of our old brash piles earlier today covered in lots of Scarlet Elf Cups, brilliant.
We are obsessed with having the place tidy and visually spick and span and this methodical madness overflows into conservation work. You can blame farmers, and landowners, but it’s a human trait, which inflicts us all. Our nature reserve aren’t exactly wild, all are tidied and sponged down for human visitations. We hold to the light shiny examples of what we think are the ideal scenarios of conservation because species X has been reintroduced, yet fail to see the failing accompanying biodiversity deficiencies – but we congratulate ourselves because we have species X at least and our bank balance looks healthy.
If those who are suppose to know about conservation only did one thing and left our natural woodland alone, then half of our problems would disappear, but we don’t, removing dead wood is just the tip of the vandalism iceberg, random felling, and planting non-native conifer is going to be the new pastime for many and in 50 years time we’ll have sterlised the countryside – job done.
Creating brash hedges, leaving falling trees alone and constructing log wigwams on cleared land are important tools in rewilding, you want to see a nightjar close-up, then build a wigwam, but it’s a eyesore for the uninitiated. The RSPB took a ridiculous amount of time, over 45 years to get their first nightjar at The Lodge, we took 7 months. We have no hedgehogs the badgers have sorted that, but that’s a natural balance, you quickly learn that some you win others you lose. Ponds are important that’s why we have built so many over winter, and the whole team are buzzing with excitement and expectations on this summers prospects, at the moment brimstones are everywhere, the odd comma, plus the marsh fritillaries took their springtime walk about, an accumulation of 5 years of work.
Yeah another reason why habitat piles are important is that the shrub layer is missing so often they’re substitute bushes for nesting birds. Song thrushes are so rare I can easily go a year without seeing one, but I’ve had one fly over and inspect a habitat pile five minutes after I made it.
Hmm. ‘Over 45 years to get their first nightjar’. I can’t put a precise date on it, but the plantation trees were still standing in 2007, so we are talking more like a decade of heathland restoration than four times that. I worked there for some of that time and whilst much brash was burnt, much also was left. Even so, Les’s phrase resonates: “even with many conservation projects brash is still burnt for the jolly old stereotypical campfire with the breaking out of the end of session biscuits and cups of tea.”
The larger question is whether humankind instinctively loves tidiness. I don’t know the evidence on that. It is often suggested that it is a human trait to do this or that when in fact the habit is not more than a few decades or centuries old. What is surely true is that we have to lose that habit, trait, or whatever it is, if we are consciously to let nature back, not least in towns and suburbs.
Brilliant. And thanks Les – I was having a grey morning until I read your blog. (Despite being too dim to understand ‘…Gang aft agley …’),
Yes, leaving brash around is the ultimate act of recycling and it’s a conservation no-brainer. Except it needs your brain and exuberance to point out the bleeding obvious to the rest of us: Nature needs your film pdq.
Here, on a small community willow growing allotment we have created large piles of lopped and cleared vegetation. We describe them as virtuous cubes – 2x2x2 metres filled with decomposing branch and grass cuttings caged in by planted willows and self-sown alders which provide nitrogen for good yearly crops of whips for basket weaving. Most of the alders have been pollarded. But some have got away and are producing too much shade. Instead of felling, we have half cut and bent them against one of the trash piles. They are still alive and growing. Next we stuffed brash between their near horizontal trunks. The result is a small re-enactment of a ‘post super-storm-flood event’. I.e. destructive and creative at the same time.
Your important ecological message (via the fungal telegraph?) about brash and the edge-effect derived from broken (not cut) stems will be passed on and made use of here in future. Thanks for all your first rate, diligent, uphill campaigning over the years.
Despite being a first rate armchair naturalist, I’ve no authority to comment on you calling yourself ‘a third rate field naturalist’ … Good luck with the film.
It’s interesting how many people have their own stories about composting/habitat piles – loved yours. Thanks for your comments, but having met some real campaigners (including people in Hungary who had been thrown in jail just for having an opinion), that puts things in perspective. Glad the blog brightened your morning.
You do go on when you have a bee in your bonnet Les ( probably got told this as a kid ?), but hey, i bet there weren’t
many round your way got to Kazakhstan back in the day.
Just when Conifer plantations have been thinned sufficiently to let enough light in, brash can play a big part in raising
fresh bramble growth off the ground, providing numerous secure nesting sites , long before the bramble developes
much strength of it’s own.
Also, on a number of occasions, i have come across recently fledged Goshawks where it is obvious they have been walking about on the ground, and then clambered up the brash , to relative safety.
Incidentally, it is a good idea to lay the brash in the direction you wish to drive your Pheasants, with a couple of rows
at right angles towards the flushing point.
Keep on banging your drum Les.
I know I wear myself out (and I know you weren’t being derogatory!). I’m acutely conscious that I moan a hell of a lot, but a lot of that’s down to so many things being wrong and there’s no chance of it being fixed if it’s not even acknowledged there’s an issue. The wee film we have planned would be a much better way of making the point without being strident – a less abrasive way of banging the drum!
Les – I’ve seen logs on nearby forestry land with sharp teeth-like man-made holes punched into the logs along the full length of the trunks. These logs are left in situ. I don’t know what machinery makes these crevices but I and my friends assumed this was a method of trying to create habitats for insects.
This is one of the incredibly frustrating things, there’s some really excellent work going on re the conservation of dead wood specialist fauna and flora – there’s at least one Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve where they use winches to snap tree branches off to replicate the jagged ends produced by wood snapping storms, but that cut wood doesn’t. However, once we get into away from reserves and into more public land that just evaporates. If you’re lucky they’ll hide the deadwood under bushes rather than burn it – but you won’t see a single word anywhere telling the public why dead wood in all its forms from standing dead trees to lying in water is absolutely vital for wildlife, we need an awful lot more of it, and should be upset at its absence not presence. Even people who might be sympathetic if they were given just that basic information aren’t because it isn’t. Public consultation exercises shouldn’t exclude a public education role, among other things isn’t there an obligation to provide the public with information so they can make better informed decisions? I’m writing another blog that goes into this.
I think the logs you have seen Lizzy have been passed through the teeth of the mechanical harvester.
We have a fair number scattered about, it is not a deliberate action to benefit wildlife but is worth keeping an eye on, it will probably also encourage rot to set in quicker.
Les, i forgot to mention previously, i once had over a hundred Ladybirds overwinter in one of my feed hoppers, which was de-commissioned for the duration.
Yet another instance of wildlife habitat creation by shooting interests.
The holes possibly are made by the gripping teeth of heavy contra-rotating rotors that grip and move the trunks while the machine de-limbs the branches. You might find videos of the process online.
And on that awful final note – you forgot to mention that laying brash in one direction along wildlife tracks helps steer animals towards snares, doesn’t it. And brash is so useful at creating a barrier around stink pits with snares set in a couple of openings into the pit area.
Let’s hope some day we can move to kind re-wilding practices. Let’s hope blood sports will get banned sooner rather than later.
Les – having looked after many hedgehogs (and other animals and birds) it was great to read your lovely blog. I hope your film gets plenty of publicity.
And – having worked in recycling I fully support your views on zero waste.
Keep up the great work!
I’ve two large piles of brash at the bottom of my garden Les, which the two small flocks of tree and house sparrows use daily. I had cut my large hedge down and decided to give them and other small birds from the daily lunching activities from a pair or sparrow hawks who visit regularly. I’ve decided to make them permanent features now — they’ve been present for two years — and sow some wild flower seed around them.
We also have a growing ant hill under a traffic cone a few yards from it. This began when a great tit decided to nest in it some years back andf not all the chicks made it. Two died prior to fledging and the ants had moved in . I decided to leave it and am very happy to have a mini-anthill developing under it … as are the grandchildren.
More power to you my friend.
They are incredibly valuable wildlife wise, well done to you George. I remember when I was 21 being horrified when out on conservation tasks and they burnt the brash. Only being a ‘kid’ bit my lip at the time – one advantage of getting older is you stop doing that.
A good reason to leave branches and trees snapped by the wind or when a tree is felled. I’d imagine jagged old heart wood might harbour some unique species.
Even in Europe they’re still discovering species with incredibly specific requirements re state of deadwood. Makes you wonder how many we must have lost with the general lack of dead wood across the continent.
Yes that’s my understanding – and that there are species that will only live in ancient oaks. This suggests that our our ‘wildwood’ cannot just have been dense woodland but would have included savana because ancient oaks don’t survive in dense woodland.
If you want to impress with the wildlife you can find in a compost heap. Have you tried laying two slightly weathered planks (or more) face to face on a compost heap. After a month or two it is usually solid “wall to wall” or edge to edge woodlice on mine. When you separate the boards they come alive and spill off in every direction. Not what people are expecting.
It usually happens with the stacked front boards of the compost heap even when they are leaning up on each other.
You say -habitat piles are great for wildlife and be considerably more interesting then just piling up brash,
What is the difference? I just dump everything.
The voles enjoyed the bark of recent ash, elder and apple prunings while locked down in a snowdrift that formed over a dry hedge.
Before and during the snow we found clusters of lady birds on twigs as you say they realy stood out being bright red. They seemed to be doing rather well.
Thanks for that tip, another one I didn’t know. What you suggest would be a really good educational tool as well. The ‘new’ habitat piles would be ‘designed’ (a bit of a grandiose term for it, it must be admitted) to compensate at least partly for the brash having been cut with tools not broken by natural processes so there would be some jagged ends. Also the way they’d be structured would be to significantly increase the chances the requirements for hibernating hedgehogs and nesting birds are met, making sure appropriately sized gaps and shelter occur rather than fingers crossed and hope they occur randomly, by chance. Making more of habitat piles, by putting more effort in will hopefully draw more attention to the basic concept of having habitat piles. To draw a parallel I firmly believe getting kids into doing actual source separated recycling is a far better way of developing anti litter attitudes than asking them not to litter. Having different bins for different materials works better than one for all and everything. A video would express this so, so much better than I can with a keyboard, and hopefully it will.
Les I do not know if Marks system has an automatic reply notification facility (maybe he can physically?)
You can add this interesting form of brash pile to your vocabulary.
Like nest boxes, egg laying habitat is important for grass snakes and they will travel a long way to a good one. Hence I picked up 65 slough skins round my compost heap and in the garden for the ARC gene bank survey.
https://www.arguk.org/get-involved/news/creating-grass-snake-egg-laying-heaps-the-ravon-recipe