The Young Birder

Over the past month I've been doing  work experience with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, taking part in  a lot of ecological surveys in my home county of Herefordshire. Its been mostly botanical, although bird and invertebrate species are featured as well. One of the first sites was a woodland in the south west of the county which hadn't been managed for many years, making for a very interesting habitat. Woodland left unmanaged can sometimes turn into dense bramble and thick scrub with a lack of biodiversity. Here though, the woodland's natural management was working well; where trees had fallen, glades opened up, allowing light to penetrate through.  The ground flora was very diverse, with marsh-loving plants springing up in the wet flushes, ferns pinging out all over the place and Wild Garlic and Bluebells in with stands of Ash , whilst most of the ground flora was made up of  ancient woodland indicator species.  The predominantly Ash and Oak canopy ...