The new boat arrives and we create some new habitat

Here is our lovely new boat:

In other fen news we had a bit of fun felling a tree and creating some new habitat.

Today we had to fell an old Silver Birch on the Nature Trail as it was showing signs of decay. When we have to fell a tree we tend to cut it down at ground level or if possible pollard it. This tree offered the chance to do something a bit different and create some standing deadwood habitat, firstly due to its existing decay and secondly, and most importantly, because we had a digger handy.

We put a gob and back cut in to get the tree to snap where we wanted and then Jason pushed it over. This created lovely cracks, tears and splits in the trunk and then with some delectate bashing we used the bucket to split it a bit more, hide the chainsaw cuts, and to make it look as natural as possible. A lot more fun than cutting it off at ground level and a home to a myriad of invertebrates for years to come.