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Photos and thoughts from a week of woodland management work with Wild Sussex in a beautiful small woodland in Surrey.

Back at the end of July, Emma spent an inspiring week studying ethnobotany with the Woodcraft School in West Sussex.

We have just wrapped up a busy week here in the woods selectively thinning a number of Scots pines (Pines sylvestris) as part of our long term management plan. Woodland management is a complicated business, one which I have conflicting views on. In truth I loathe the idea of ‘managing’ any part of nature in any way. Management sounds sterile and dull, yet nature is chaotic, messy and pulsing with living energy. I am an advocate of allowing natural processes to take place and learning from nature by watching events unfold.

On Saturday 25th January we headed into the woods for our first workshop of the decade. After postponing our autumn woodcarving workshop twice due to stormy weather, we were really looking forward to finally getting this one underway.

This autumn has been a wet, windy and fairly dull affair here in the woods so far; a far cry from the two previous years which delivered warm sunny days and cold nights resulting in riotous displays of autumn colour. There has been one positive from all the wet weather however, our gaze has been diverted from the golden leaves above to the earth beneath our feet and an explosion of fungi working their mycelial magic amongst the leaf litter.

Yesterday was the first truly warm day of spring so far; In the evening I took a short walk around the woods, chasing the fading orange light and taking mental notes on the activity of the fallow deer, when I heard a crackling, popping sound coming from the canopy. I looked up and around, expecting to see a grey squirrel munching on the pine cones but none could be found. No birds either. What could it be?