Birchanger Wood consists of 69 acres of ancient coppiced woodland – hornbeam, hazel, ash, birch, oak, sweet chestnut, cherry, holly, and a wide range of flora including English bluebells, wood anemones and golden saxifrages. The wood is maintained entirely by volunteers in accordance with a management plan drawn up by professional ecologists and the Forestry Commission for the benefit of local community and visitors and supported by donations from a wide range of organisations, private, public and by individuals.
We held our Spring Open day on Sunday 23rd April. A big thank you to everyone that came along – despite the not-very-promising weather forecast it was a great success! The event raised over £500 for the Trust, and it was wonderful to see so many people enjoying the Wood and the activities.
Our thanks to Jono Forgham for entertaining many people (young and old!) with pond dipping, bug hunting and owl pellet dissection.
Thank you also to the East Herts Wood Turners for their beautiful work, interesting demonstrations and for making many, many wands – they make it look easy, but it really isn’t!
The ‘Guess the weight of the log’ competition was very popular, and it seems quite fitting that the winner was our long-term volunteer, John Airey, who guessed the weight to within 10 grams, winning himself a beautiful turned pen.
The stone painting table was very busy, with lots of children getting creative. Our orienteering activity was also popular, with children using a map to follow a choice of two routes around the wood and discover some of the beautiful plants that grow here, including the bluebells which are looking splendid.
All of this was clearly thirsty and hungry work as five gallons of tea and coffee were drunk and 50 fairy cakes were consumed, as well as other biscuits and snacks!
All that remains to be said is thank you to the Birchanger Wood Trust volunteers who helped to make the day such a success. If you would like to get involved, we are always keen to hear from new volunteers – to find out more, please get in touch. Our next open day will be in late summer, date to be confirmed – watch this space!
Birchanger Wood Spring Open Day on Sunday 23rd April will have a range of activities for the whole community! It’s completely free to attend, although donations are gratefully received. Read on to find out more about what we have planned:
Pond Dipping
Find out what is in our new pond! Tadpoles aplenty and much more to discover in the depths. Just mind Toby the duck!
Woodturning Demonstration
East Herts Woodturners will be demonstrating their remarkable woodturning skills. Visitors can buy their wares made from wood sourced from Birchanger Wood, including Harry Potter wands, bowls, candlesticks, cheese boards, light pulls and pens.
Jono’s Bug Hunt
Local naturalist and educator Jono Forgham will be running woodland events throughout the day. This will include him carrying out a bug hunt, a butterfly walk and dissecting owl pellets to see what their diet consists of.
Stone Painting
Have fun painting stones which you can take home or placed in nooks and crannies around the woods for others to find and relocate.
Orienteering
Take an orienteering map and find the hidden waypoints around the woods. A great way to explore the woods and learn little more about the wonderful flowers and trees that grow here.
Find us at our compound just off Heath Row, next to the water tower. Everyone welcome!
The new 10-year Woodland Management plan for Birchanger Wood includes coppicing some key areas to let the light in and increase biodiversity. We have already made a start near our compound, which you may have seen on your walks in the wood. Read on to find out how coppicing works magic in woodlands.
What is coppicing?
Coppicing is where a tree is cut down to its base to create a ‘stool’ from which new shoots will grow. It looks very drastic, but within a year or two the tree will be showing lots of new, strong growth.
Coppicing work under way near our compound, January 2023
In fact, coppicing can actually increase the life span of a tree! Some of the oldest trees in Britain are grown from coppice stools. They can live to an incredible age, like the amazing lime at Westonbirt Arboretum that is thought to be two thousand years old.
Coppicing has been used as a woodland management technique since the Stone Age. Coppicing made sure there was a good steady supply of firewood and timber that could be more easily harvested than felling the whole tree, and this technique would have been used at Birchanger Wood for hundreds of years. Most tree species can be coppiced but it’s especially suitable for hornbeam, which we have lots of at Birchanger, and hazel.
But times have changed – why are we still doing it today?
Coppicing has major benefits for biodiversity. After cutting the trees, light floods the woodland floor allowing smaller plants, such as wildflowers, to thrive. It also means shrubby plants like brambles can grow, which make ideal habitat and provide sources of food for small birds and other animals and insects.
Will you coppice every tree?
No. We have a plan to coppice only certain areas of the woodland (you can read that in full here) and within each area a number of mature trees – also known as ‘standards’ – will be left. Quite a few of these will be oaks. These mature trees provide another vital habitat and it is very important that we look after them, too.
What happens when the coppiced trees grow back?
As the trees regrow, the canopy slowly closes over again, reducing the light that reaches the woodland floor. This takes between five and eight years. Each area will be coppiced roughly every 20-30 years, meaning that the canopy is closed for the majority of the time. We will coppice other areas in ‘rotation’, meaning the wood will have trees at all different ages and stages of growth. This will provide the widest possible range of habitats to support the widest possible range of plants and animals.
What are the piles of dead wood for?
We also leave some piles of cut wood or fallen trees to decay. You may have seen these in the wood. This is not just us being too lazy to tidy up! Lots of species rely on dead wood for food and habitat – including many invertebrates and fungi. It is a vital element of a biodiverse woodland.
The latest 10-year Woodland Management Plan for Birchanger Wood was approved in December 2022. The ambitious and exciting plan sets out how the Trust will work to maintain and enhance the biodiversity of the wood in the coming years, and how it will involve the local community to make sure the woodland remains an accessible natural space for all to enjoy.
The coppicing work recommended in the Plan will help to provide habitat for small woodland birds and mammals by encouraging a ‘shrub layer’ to grow. A shrub layer is made up of younger trees, such as hazel, holly and hawthorn, which is perfect for nesting, feeding and sheltering. As the Plan notes, there is potential to provide much more of this kind of habitat at Birchanger Wood, which could make a real difference to the diversity of species that the wood supports.
Would you like to help us achieve this vision for the future of Birchanger Wood? Our volunteering sessions take place every Saturday, and even if you can only spare an hour or two we would love to hear from you. Birchanger Wood Trust is entirely run by volunteers, and many hands make light work! Please fill in our contact form and we will get back to you.
Update as of 1st January 2023: we have now sold out of seasoned firewood! Our log sales are now suspended until further notice. We hope to start selling again in autumn / winter 2023, once our newer stores have fully seasoned.
Our thanks to all of our customers this year. Log sales are a really important part of our fundraising and all the money raised goes into supporting the conservation and restoration of this beautiful woodland.
Don’t forget you can also support us by making a donation to on our website by clicking here.
We will be open from 8.30am-9.30am on Saturday 24th December and Saturday 31st December, with no afternoon sales.
Due to high demand, our stock of seasoned, dry firewood is very low – the picture above was taken in the summer and that bay is now completely empty.
We are still only charging £13 per wheelbarrow full, available from our compound next to the water tower on Heath Row in Bishop’s Stortford. Click here to see a map of how to find us. Cash only. We are happy to help you get the logs into your car.
Please check back on our website or our Facebook page for updates on details of our log sales for 2023.
Thank you for everyone that has bought logs from us this year. The money we raise from these goes straight back to preserving and enhancing this beautiful woodland.
Don’t forget we are always keen to recruit new volunteers, you don’t have to be super fit and you don’t have to commit to every session! If you would like to find out more, please come along to our compound on a Saturday morning at around 10am. We’re here every week.
Birchanger Wood is set to host a range of activities for the whole community on 20th August, including bug hunts, orienteering and wood-turning – and it’s all free, although donations are gratefully received.
Local naturalist and educator Jono Forgham will be running woodland events throughout the day:
10am-midday: Moths and butterflies and pellet dissection.
Midday-1pm: Bug hunt and butterfly survey
1pm-2pm: Owl pellet dissection
2pm-3pm: Bug hunt
Throughout the day, the Bishop’s Stortford wood turners will be carrying out demonstrations at our compound next to the water tower on Heath Row. Visitors can buy their wares made from wood sourced from Birchanger Wood, including bowls, candlesticks, cheese boards, light pulls and pens.
We will also have an orientation activity with maps of the wood available for just £1.
And there may be other surprises… watch this space!
Woodland conservation can keep you in shape, no matter your age or level of fitness – and there is no sign-up fee and no monthly direct debit.
Birchanger Wood volunteers are involved in a vast array of activities throughout the year, which can change from season to season, offering great variety. Activities range from moderate to vigorous exercise, allowing everyone the opportunity to participate: planting trees, clearing leaves from paths, picking up rubbish, splitting and stacking logs, coppicing and pruning trees, and for those who are certified using a chainsaw for felling. Everyone can go at their own pace and according to their ability and time.
Felling trees – whether coppicing or removing dangerous and diseased trees – is part and parcel of managing woodlands to enhance biodiversity. At Birchanger Wood, felled trees are cut up, split and stored for seasoning. The next year, the logs are sold for sustainable firewood, creating an income and making our local woodland financially self-sufficient. All this involves physical labour.
Woodland conservation is comparable to other sport and leisure activities in keeping you healthy. Moderate wood splitting with an axe will burn 384 calories an hour – more than 80% more than a yoga class, 50% more than pilates and just 9% less than a 13-minute mile run. But if you use vigorous effort, you can expect to be burning calories faster than a high impact aerobics class. Felling small to medium-sized trees is comparable to an hour of taekwondo. Using a chainsaw will burn more calories than moderate to vigorous spinning. At the top end of the calory-burning spectrum, felling large trees uses more energy than playing competitive tennis.
A young volunteer gets a workout splitting wood
Wood splitting with an axe is a work-out for the whole body, engaging multiple muscles to perform a swing and stabilise your position. It engages the entire core, including lower and upper back, shoulders, arms, abs, chest, legs and glutes. Swinging an axe uses all your abdominal muscles, from the ribs to the hips. Similar exercises can be done in the gym using weighted resistance, such as a medicine ball, but why pay a gym to practice an exercise you can do in the fresh air and for the benefit of woodland conservation?
You don’t have to be built like a lumberjack to swing an axe. Our volunteer Alice said, “I really enjoy it – and you don’t have to be super fit or strong! I admit my log-splitting skills are still a work in progress, but every extra pair of hands helps and it’s much more fun than the gym.”
Our most senior volunteer John leads on tree planting and has planted scores of young trees throughout the woodland, which are thriving. Tree planting uses around 380 calories per hour for an average-sized man – the equivalent of running four-and-a-half miles. But why spend good money running on a treadmill that goes nowhere to the sound of bad dance music when you can be using the same energy to do something positive for the planet?
Our younger volunteers are in their teens, often joining us as part of a Duke of Edinburgh qualification. They can enjoy physical activity, an educational opportunity and working alongside the generations. Two of our trustees are among our youngest volunteers and Birchanger Wood has become part of their lives – in one case, involvement in woodland conservation sparked an interest that led to doctoral research in woodlands. We are proud of being inclusive of all generations, which is what community bonds are all about.
By being out in the fresh air alongside friendly volunteers in non-competitive physical work, volunteers are benefitting their mental health.
According to a report released in December 2021 by Forest Research, in England woodlands save £141 million in costs associated with mental health illnesses, including visits to GPs, drug prescriptions, inpatient care, social services and the number of days lost due to mental health issues. The figures are based on evidence of the reduced incidence of depression and anxiety resulting from regular visits to woodlands.
Volunteers having a chinwag over tea and biscuits
Stephen Buckley, Head of Information for mental health charity Mind, said, “Spending time outdoors – especially in woodlands or near water – can help with mental health problems such as anxiety and mild to moderate depression. This might be due to combining regular physical activity and social contact with being outside in nature. Being outside in natural light can also be helpful if you experience seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression that affects people during particular seasons or times of year. Although many of us feel like hibernating in winter, getting outside in green spaces and making the most of the little daylight we get can really benefit both your physical and mental health.”
So, take up the woodland challenge for the sake of your own body and mind, for the sake of your community – and for the sake of all the diverse species in this ancient native woodland.
Volunteer activity happens every Saturday, from 9am to 3pm, throughout the year. Just turn up at our compound next to the water tower on Heath Row, Bishop’s Stortford. Stay for an hour, a morning or the whole day – you choose your hours. We look forward to seeing new volunteers.
July is a time for the insects of Birchanger Wood to come to the fore. Butterflies, moths and hoverflies should be easy to find. Many moth species can be disturbed from low growing vegetation and then seen in flight. They will invariably fly a short distance before landing and moving to the underside of a leaf to hide from predators. After dusk, an evening walk with a torch will reveal large numbers of these fascinating and rarely seen insects in flight.
Butterfly species will be seen on warm, sunny days, particularly in the early afternoon. Speckled Wood will be common, a brown butterfly showing yellow/cream dots on the upper wings. Meadow browns will be found on the periphery of the wood, adjacent to the agricultural land whilst the smaller skipper species will be noted resting on leaves, looking like orange moths.
The bramble will be in flower so always worth checking the white or pink flowers of this common plant within the woods. Gatekeeper butterflies will nectar on these and will be joined by a host of hoverfly species. These are the yellow and black insects that are similar to bees and wasps but a quick check on the facial features will show them to be a fly species. Very short antennae and large eyes will give the observer an indication they are flies.
Other butterflies worth looking for will be Red admiral, Small tortoiseshell and the Small and Large whites. The latter two will most likely be found where houses with gardens back on to the wood.
Also on nettles and bramble leaves will be the webs of the Nursery web spider, Pisaura mirabilis. These webs will be crawling with plenty of recently hatched spiderlings and invariably, the female will not be far away. Look on large flat leaves for her where she will be stationary, waiting for an insect to land. She will always have her first two sets of legs together, giving the impression she is a 6 legged insect and not an 8 legged spider.
If you come across any insect and manage a photo, (phone or camera) I would be happy to see it and help identify it for you. Always a chance of a rarity being found, so do send in your photos. jforgham@hotmail.com.
More unusual, but not unexpected butterflies will be Purple Hairstreak and Silver Washed fritillary. Both require oak for their caterpillars to feed upon. The purple hairstreak likes to spend most of its time high in the oak canopies, so is rarely seen. After 2pm, especially after some morning July rain is the best time to observe them, when they come down lower to nectar and drink. The Silver washed fritillary is a large orange and black butterfly, fast flying that will land upon vegetation to both nectar and rest.
During July, many birds go into post breeding moult. The new feathers grow through, pushing the old ones out. These older feathers will now be very worn from constant hunting for food. Consequently, they will remain quiet, hiding away as the new feathers grow. They are still present in the wood, just not easy to see. However, larger birds like the magpies and Jays will still be seen, albeit in a rather tatty state.
The fungus season in Birchanger Wood is now virtually over. The autumn saw a wide variety of fruiting bodies bursting through the woodland floor and from rotting wood, as seen in these photos taken in the wood this year.
The fruiting bodies – some beautiful (such as lilac bonnet which lives in leaf litter) and some ugly (such as dog’s vomit slime mould that thrives in damp bark mulch) – are just a fraction of the fascinating organism that is neither plant nor animal.
While some fungus such as Hymenoscyphus fraxineus which causes ash dieback can attack and even kill trees, most fungus is beneficial for our woodland. They assist with the decomposition of dead vegetation, turning it into fertile soil. Mycorrhizal fungi help provide tree roots with water and nutrients. There are also parasitic fungi like “yellow brain” that feed on other fungi. Many fungal species will not even push out fruiting bodies or be detected outside a laboratory.
If you are interested in fungus identification and putting a name to the species in these photos, go to our mobile app download page and choose from one of the identification apps.
Thanks to Birchanger Wood trustee Jono Forgham for sending these photos and allowing us to publish them.
Birchanger Wood 