Ness Country Park Wild Week Revisited

It's early spring at the moment.

It seems fairly quiet. A few walkers going through,

but what is actually happening here at the moment?

Well, I suppose the woodland itself is coming out of its winter sleep.

The ground floor of the woodland flowers

are a bit early for them yet.

They'll start to develop because the woodland canopy hasn't fully developed.

Natural light is getting in for them to sprout and develop.

Within a month's time, this will be awash with colour,

with bluebells, anemone and sorrel.

-The idea of the food chain almost literally starts at our feet...

-Yes.

..with all this mulch and leaves around us too.

You've got the remnants of all the autumn leaves that are still here.

Some of the small branches. It's the woodland's own composting system.

The leaves are decayed by the worms and the invertebrates here that break that down.

By breaking it down, they're enriching the ground vegetation

that provides the sustainability for new generations of oaks and woodland flowers to come up.

There's an example of this here.

It's this fallen piece of timber here, that is showing

the development of fungi.

And you have allowed this to stay here?

Yes, as that's a habitat in itself

for hibernating hedgehogs, woodlice, all our different invertebrates in the woodland.

-There's moss on it.

-There's moss here and fungi.

But it's all part of the breaking down of the whole leaf,

which is a very rich habitat in itself.

The leaf litter and branches and fungi and moss

are creating sustainability in the future for the rest of the woodland to continue.

The oak trees that we're surrounded by have been here for hundreds of years.

If we go further into the forest, we can actually see how fragile their existence has been.

There's a good example of that upstream here.

We can take a walk there now.

Seamus, we're deep in the woods now and there's a real sense of...

-It's almost like we've time travelled.

-Yes.

We're surrounded by the mighty oak.

Is it true that a lot of these oaks could be from the 17th century?

You're dating back here to remnants of an ancient woodland.

The oaks have been here a long time.

Some wouldn't be that old,

but ground conditions here are associated with an ancient woodland.

Looking up at the oak trees there, they seem to be perched on rock.

Yep, yep. You wonder how they can be sustained in such a thin layer of the soil,

but the oak trees have one major taproot and that's a very aggressive, vigorous, root system.

It penetrates most of the rock to look for water and food source.

Coupled with that, it's got a lateral root system, which is also supporting the tree on the top.

It may look as if it could topple over, but it's quite strong and safe.

The oak tree, then.

How significant is it to the food chain

that we've been talking about in the forest?

The oak is probably the greatest tree

as it supports over 400 species of wildlife, from moss and lichens to invertebrates, spiders, insects,

which are part of an ecosystem supporting the woodland.

When I come back, later into spring,

what changes am I going to see?

You'll wonder if you're in the same woodland,

because the transformation will be immense.

Each season brings everything into its own.

There's one sitting on the ground.

-Just below the...

-Oh, there is one just sitting there, look.

On top of the feeder, there's a red squirrel.

I do believe that's the very first time I've seen a red squirrel in the wild.

The success of the project is down to these feeder stations.

The challenge was to get a feeder that fed the red squirrels,

but didn't feed the grey squirrels, which totally excluded them.

So what we came up with was basically a hole or a plate,

getting the minimum size that red squirrels could get to, but grey squirrels couldn't.

What's the size difference between a red and a grey squirrel?

A red squirrel is 300g and a grey squirrel is approximately 600g.

-Almost twice the size?!

-Twice the size, yes.

-So the hole is vital?

-The hole is vital.

He's got in through the hole, so what's going on there?

The squirrel has to go through the hole,

physically open the flap and take some food.

There's a little platform in there.

He can sit quite happily, as there's a hole either side.

If a predator comes along, he can make a quick exit safely.

-So they're inquisitive?

-They are, yes.

-Adventurous?

-Yes.

-And very nimble?

-Yes, very nimble. I hear another one.

-Do you hear another one? Where?

-You can hear them running up and down the trees.

-You can hear their nails on the bark.

-Do they cling on to the bark?

They do. They go up and down, sometimes in a spiral movement.

He's gone! Look, he's out, he's out, he's away.

There he goes, going up the tree.

What they quite often do is they'll get a certain amount of food

and then they'll cache it.

-Hide it?

-Yeah, they dig little holes and they put it in

and use their wee paws and tramp it down.

That's what he's doing at the moment.

Why is the grey squirrel a threat?

It's eating a lot of the food that the red squirrel would naturally eat.

It also carries a disease called pox virus.

The grey squirrel is immune to the pox virus,

but if it comes in contact with the reds and passes it on,

it kills the red squirrels within weeks.

The two can't live hand-in-hand?

I think it's unrealistic

to think that you could get rid of all the grey squirrels,

but I think in areas

where there's a good, strong, red squirrel population,

it's very important that a grey squirrel population is managed.

-We're talking about culling here?

-Yes.

And basically,

if you want to keep reds, you have to keep grey numbers down.

There he goes, he's had enough, has he?

How many red squirrels are there today, and how many were there when you started up in your group?

-11 to over 100 in four years.

-That's not bad.

-Yeah.

Nowadays, you have more chance of seeing red squirrels in Tollymore than you do of greys.

I think we'll sneak away now, will we?

Let these guys enjoy themselves. Thank you for allowing me to be part of today.

It's a day I'll never forget, actually.

Seamus, I was here with you about two months ago.

-There's such a difference today.

-Yes.

-Firstly the smell, birdsong too.

And an absolute galaxy of colour here.

The bluebells, and what else have we got?

There's this beautiful stitchwort flower.

Beautiful little plant, yellow centre on it, little lobed petals on it.

You've got the bluebell here with its six lobed flowers down one side. That's the native bluebell.

OK, so this one is the real McCoy.

This is the native one.

And this means that this all around us here is a native woodland.

Correct.

Here you have ground conditions associated with ancient woodlands.

Indicators like bluebells, stitchwort, wood sorrel and anemones are prominent here

because of the association with ancient woodland.

What I notice as well that has changed since I was last here

is the canopy over us.

You did talk about that the last time.

-Can we go deeper into the forest?

-We can. Follow through.

The tree canopy's closing over, so the bluebells,

the celandine and stitchwort have all tried to get up,

before the last leaf has closed over, to get that last glimpse of light.

So the little shafts coming through, that's what's keeping them going.

They're all fighting for that glimpse of light,

whether it's ground flora, wild flowers or sapling trees.

They're all trying to get up through to survive.

It's survival of the fittest.

What's this yellow flower?

It's a lesser celandine flower,

another flower associated with ancient woodland.

-Flowers here are actually fighting for survival.

-Yes.

Further along, there are saplings which possibly pose a threat to this natural woodland.

-Can we have a look at them?

-You can indeed, follow me.

I see trees growing up all around me.

I don't see any threat to the natural woodland. What's going on?

There's a lot of mature beeches here, and unfortunately with their dense canopy,

they're prohibiting the trees like the ash regenerating in here naturally.

An example would be this small beech sapling here.

-So that will grow into that?

-It will. Very fast growing.

The problem will be that once it gets up to that state there, with the dense canopy of the beech,

it prohibits natural oak and ash.

-Would you just pluck that out then?

-You would pluck it rather than chop down a mature beech.

They do have a wildlife value, but not like the oak and the ash in the woodland.

Historically the beech are a pretty competitive tree. They'll grow quicker than the oak.

It's funny, on either side of us there are shafts of sunlight coming down.

-And there are bluebells growing there.

-There are.

Where we are now is quite barren.

It's barren because the tree canopy above is quite dense with a lot of shade.

It's going to take a very resilient plant to grow in here.

Do you think that you're winning the battle

and preserving the long-term future of these natural woodlands?

Hopefully we are.

It's a long-term programme, it's not overnight,

but I do think we are winning the battle slowly but surely.

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