Forestry Forwarder

Yesterday when I was out for a walk in the woods I got talking to a forester who was part of a team cutting down trees. He told me that several acres of the hillside were being felled as the larch trees were infected with Phytophthora ramorum (his actual words were "you know....that disease that begins with P" and I knew exactly what he meant, although I had to use Google to get the spelling!).

The Ramorum disease first appeared in Rhododendron bushes 2 or 3 years ago and nobody seemed to bother. However, when the disease spread to the Japanese Larch, which is a significant commercial crop in Argyll, action was taken. For the last 12 months or so teams of workers armed with chainsaws have been clearing areas of infected Rhododendron. The smoke from their fires has been a regular feature on the hillsides. Now contractors have moved in with heavy harvester machines, which grab and cut a whole tree before ripping off all the branches and chopping it into regular lengths of timber.

Today Mrs B and I went for a walk in the same area and found this forwarder removing the logs from the hillside and neatly stacking them at the side of the road. Apparently, since the trees are infected, the logs will be taken away to be incinerated. Seems a bit strange to me as you would think they could be used for some kind of wood burning boiler to create heat or some other form of energy.

It seems the disease has now spread to larch trees in over a hundred sites in the UK and is proving impossible to contain. The view in these parts is the disease is uncontainable, but that through time nature will develop resistance to the disease in the trees and shrubs affected.

Following on from yesterday's blip, I have established why there are so few birds in the garden. Three times this morning a Sparrow Hawk swooped down on the bird feeders as I was looking out the kitchen window. Twice, while I was on the phone, I managed to knock the window and the Sparrow Hawk flew off. On the third occasion it wasn't put off by my knocking and flew after some birds through the bushes. It was so fast I couldn't see clearly if it got one, although I suspect it did as it didn't reappear. No sign of Tommy last few days so just hoping he hasn't been a meal for the Sparrow Hawk!