Bird of the Month - Tree Pipit

In the third instalment of our “Bird of the Month” blog we look at one of the first migrant bird species to arrive at Fingle each year.Following the joint Woodland Trust (WT) and National Trust (NT) purchase of Fingle Woods in 2013, a management plan was drawn up setting out how areas of the site covered by commercial conifer crops would be restored to ancient woodland. The restoration would take many years – with gradual thinning of the conifers allowing sunlight to reach the woodland floor and reactivate a dormant seedbank of native trees and shrubs. Although this process is now well underway across much of the site, in some areas circumstances forced a more drastic approach.Back in 2002, a fungus-like tree disease known as “Phytophthora ramorum” was identified in the UK for the first time. By 2009 the disease had spread to plantations of Japanese Larch (Larix kaempferi) across South-west England, and in an attempt to control the spread of the disease the Forestry Commission began issuing Statutory Plant Health Notices (SPHNs), requiring landowners with infected Larch plantations to fell the trees. At the time, Japanese Larch plantations covered approximately 10% of Fingle’s 334 hectares, and in the years since the WT and NT purchased the site there have been several SPHNs issued, necessitating the clear-felling of areas of the site.Probably the most dramatic of these is in Halls Cleave, where much of the southern side of the steep valley was cleared of Larch over the winter of 2015/2016. Fortunately, sensitive felling work preserved a thriving understory of native trees beneath the conifers which are now flourishing – but even in the first few months following the clearance, when the hillside was still bare and brown, one of Fingle’s migrant bird species was already taking advantage of the newly-created open space.

Text, pictures and recordings by Tom Williams