Habitat creation & Veteranisation
Bat roosts & Nest boxes in trees
The chainsaw is an extremely versatile woodworking tool that can be used not only to remove parts of trees as ‘cleanly’ as possible but also to fashion living and dead wood in a way that is more useable by the variety of tree dwelling wildlife, together with other wood working tools such as drills and augers can be used to cut cavities within larger pieces of timber that could shelter bats, provide a nest sites for hole-nesting birds or initiate internal decay to promote habitat for saproxylic invertebrates and fungi.
Log piles and Hibernaculum
Log piles and Hibernaculum
Log piles and Hibernaculum
Log pile habitats are perfect hiding places for insects and other animals that provide a valuable food source for amphibians, birds and hedgehogs. They provide habitat for saproxylic fungi and invertebrates.
Logs are stacked and held together with wire to reduce the chance of collapse or removal for firewood.
Log piles and Hibernaculum
Log piles and Hibernaculum
Dead and decaying wood is the lifeblood of any woodland, park, garden or churchyard. Decaying wood re-cycles nutrients back into the soil, provides food and nurseries for rare invertebrates and animals, and hosts spectacular collections of fungi.
These habitats were created for Trowse Newton Parish Council.
Log piles and Hibernaculum
Hibernacula are underground chambers that amphibians and reptiles use throughout the winter to protect themselves from the cold.
Amphibians and reptiles like frogs, toads, newts, lizards and snakes are regular visitors to gardens, especially those with log piles.
This hibernaculum is located close to a tributary of the river Yare south of Norwich
Veteranisation of trees, Fracture pruning, Coronet cuts & Pollarding
Look around and see how trees break up under natural forces. The complex, shattered surfaces produced provide micro-habitats that the straight, flat cut of a chainsaw does not. Simulating it is not as simple as it may seem – crude coronet cuts can look as false as target pruning. However, with skill and practice a passing resemblance to nature can be achieved that provides deep cracks to shelter invertebrates or hold a nuthatch’s food.
More information on veteranisation here
What is veteranisation and why do we do it?
Veteranisation is the act of intentionally causing damage to younger trees or parts of trees that may take many years to occur naturally examples include woodpecker and other bird holes, failed torn branches, stripped bark, lightning strikes and cavities and decaying wood and wood mould caused by wood decay fungi.
Naturally occurring damage helps create areas of decaying wood within a living tree, a specialist and increasingly rare habitat for a wide range of wildlife.
Very old trees are full of life. In particular Ancient & Veteran trees (AVT’s) that show features such as hollowing and decay.
Such features offer a very specialised decaying wood habitat for a variety of saproxylic: invertebrates (a saproxylic species depends on dead or dying wood of moribund or dead trees during some part of its life-cycle ) also nesting and roosting locations for birds, bats and other animlas well as ideal conditions for rare and sometimes protected lichen and fungi.
These features are mostly only found in trees that are hundreds of years old, but it is possible to mimic the characteristics of these ancient and veteran trees on young or semi-mature trees, which enhances the local habitat in order to support an environment rich in biodiversity.
