Legbourne Wood

This morning I went for a walk to Legbourne wood which is one of the few remaining ancient woodlands in eastern Lincolnshire. These old surviving woods have had continuous woodland cover since at least 1500 and they are rich in wildlife. Today only 3 % of Lincolnshire is wooded and barely a third of that is ancient woodland.
The canopy at Legbourne is ash and oak and beneath this canopy over 60 species of wildflowers have been recorded. Traditionally the oak and ash grew tall and the the undergrowth of hazel would have been coppiced.
How sad to see the effect of ash dieback and this huge pile of felled timber, a lot of which was ash.
Will have to keep going back to see what grows in the areas where trees have been felled.
Catkins, pussy willows, gorse and primroses added colour to the otherwise fairly wintery scene.