The Parish Council is working with the Woodland Trust to bring Tilley’s Copse back into active management for biodiversity.
You may notice that a few young trees have been sprayed with green numbers.
These trees have been carefully selected by qualified woodland managers to be reduced in size to help increase the light and space in the copse. This will give the surrounding trees more space to grow. It will also allow more light and warmth to reach the flowers and shrubs underneath, providing more food and shelter for wildlife like birds, bats and small mammals, and the invertebrates (mini-beasts) they feed on.
If you look around the wood, there are very few small oak trees growing to replace the bigger ones. With more light and space, new tree saplings will be able to grow to regenerate the wood for future generations.
The numbered trees will be left as standing and lying deadwood. Decaying wood is an important habitat. Around 2,000 species in the UK need it as part of their life cycle and many others use it for food and shelter (think – woodpeckers, boring insects and bats). Lots of rare beetles and fungi only live in deadwood. This process of natural decay, recycles the nutrients into the soil for the other woodland plants to use and stores carbon.
Active woodland management is necessary, particularly in small woods, to mimic natural processes and ensure their long-term survival.
This woodland management is being undertaken using grant funding from The Lost Woods of the Low Weald and Downs Heritage Lottery Fund project.
