Grass Wood Coppicing Task Day Sara Spillett
Grass Wood is my local Yorkshire Wildlife Trust ancient woodland and I’d often seen the results of coppicing carried out by the Trust’s volunteers, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to join Nature Reserves Manager (North West) Graham Standring, and seven volunteers for a mid-winter task day of coppicing and woodland management.
When I arrived, the volunteers were already gathering their tools ready for the 9.30am start.
Coppicing Task Day Grass Wood - Sara Spillett
Graham gave us a swift but thorough welcome briefing, covering the day’s tasks, first aid, and how to carry and use the tools safely. These included bow saws, Silky saws, loppers, spades and tree poppers (more about those shortly).
Task Day Tools - Sara Spillett
Then it was off into the wood along one of the main paths. We stopped beside a wigwam of twigs. Graham explained that our task would involve both coppicing hazel and removing invasive beech trees from an area next to the path. Coppicing is a traditional woodland management technique where broadleaf trees are cut down to ground level during winter to encourage fresh new growth. Hazel trees typically live for 60–80 years, but repeated coppicing can enable them to live for over a thousand years!
Grass Wood Coppicing Task Day - Sara Spillett
Grass Wood Coppicing Task Day - Sara Spillett
In the past, coppiced wood was used for products such as charcoal. Today, on the reserve, coppicing helps maintain a healthy and diverse habitat, creating a mix of light and shade that benefits birds, butterflies, wildflowers and mammals. Graham told us that areas recently coppiced, like the one we were working in, already support more wildflowers and butterflies. The wigwam of twigs protects the new growth from deer, hares and rabbits until it is tall enough to survive on its own. An added benefit is that, being organic, this protection doesn’t need to be removed later.
Grass Wood’s management plan aims to maintain it as oak and ash woodland. Although there are stands of mature beech trees in the wood, Graham explained the importance of preventing the spread of species like beech, which outgrow other trees and shade out ground flora. This is where the tree popper comes in. It is a surprisingly heavy hand-held tool with jaws, that uses leverage to remove saplings, roots and all.
Cant Hook used to remove saplings roots - Sara Spillett
Graham Standring Grass Wood Task Day - Sara Spillett
Gordon, a volunteer of 30 years, told me that the area we were working in had once been a conifer plantation, which the Trust removed. That really brought home to me that woodlands don’t just happen, they need care and ongoing management if they are to support diverse flora (which Grass Wood’s Special Site of Scientific Interest status relates to), and therefore fauna.
There was a lot to do and volunteers were soon at work using tree poppers to remove beech. Once out of the ground, these were then stacked into habitat piles providing shelter for small mammals, slow worms and insects.
Grass Wood Coppicing Task Day - Sara Spillett
Other volunteers set about coppicing hazel. And while some of the larger branches would need to be removed by trained staff with chainsaws, it wasn’t long before their work really made a difference and the woodland began to transform around us.
Coppicing hazel - Sara Spillett
As a short break from the main tasks, Gordon and Stephen showed me an ingenious way of checking whether one of the Trust's owl boxes needed cleaning out which involved inspecting an owl box using a mirror and torch on long poles!
Checking if an owl box needs cleaning Grass Wood Volunteers - Sara Spillett
Grass Wood’s volunteers travel from relatively local Skipton to more distant Leeds and Wensleydale. The five regular volunteers all said they enjoyed working on the reserve consistently and getting to know such a special place, working incredibly well together. The two new volunteers shared that they too had been drawn to volunteering somewhere beautiful.
Graham invited the volunteers to swap tasks, so no one had the opportunity to get bored, or too tired
Grass Wood Coppicing Task Day - Sara Spillett
I’m certainly looking forward to revisiting the wood to see the long-term benefits that follow as well as meeting with the volunteers working together for wilder woods. You can see more about the wood in the Trust’s reserves’ guide and even take an online tour.
If you’d like to get involved in a volunteering task day near you, do take a look at our latest Practical Conservation Calendar, with hundreds of task days taking place across Yorkshire.
