Virtual Farm Tour (2)
The Upper Farm Road
This is an untouched sector of natural woodland with old trees falling down and being replaced with new growth. It therefore does not need any positive management. However most of this NNR was felled in the second world war, and has regrown, resulting in an even canopy which in turn creates a similar habitat, so that sections should be felled and allowed to "start again" initially with brambles providing a food source for butterflies and dormice for example. This is then replaced by coppice from the stumps of the trees creating a habitat for nightingales for example. Finally it matures and provides high canopy, with shaded woodland allowing bluebells to flower before the shading occurs and also by inhibiting the competition, allowing lion tongue fern its habitat.
This sector of the NNR was a potato field in the 1914/18 world war and was then abandoned and indicates what happens to farmland when it is abandoned. The first birch trees are dying and so the first timber cycle is now complete and slowly more native trees will reestablish and mature.
