Mike Dilger’s wildlife watching
In his series of great places to watch wildlife in the UK, the star of BBC One’s The One Show this month encourages us to explore Britain’s conifer plantations, which are home to a surprising array of animals.
Venture into Britain’s conifer woods to see a host of native species
With the glaring exception of our native and noble Caledonian pine forests in the Scottish Highlands, all other British evergreen forests are usually considered as little more than an alien habitat. The planting of primarily non-native conifers in huge plantations is a relatively recent phenomenon, which only arose from the need to create a national reserve of timber when woodland cover reached an all-time low of five per cent by the end of World War I.
Producing a yield up to six times faster than broadleaf trees, conifers will always be the forester’s timber of choice. But with such a limited cast of native conifers to select from, British plantations became quickly populated by fast-growing, introduced species such as Sitka spruce and lodgepole pine from North America, or Norway spruce and Corsican pine from mainland Europe. So dominant has been the rise of the plantation, that roughly half of the UK’s current woodland cover now consists of these large, evergreen blots on the landscape.
These conifer plantations were traditionally planted in areas where poor soil fertility had previously ruled out their conversion to intensive agriculture, such as lowland heaths or upland bogs. Often consisting of dark, monotonous rows of uniformly-sized trees, the first impression is of a habitat seemingly devoid of life. Yet, while this may hold true for their interior, with deep shade and thick needle-litter, plantations are still capable of supporting a surprising range of native species, and even extending the natural range of some birds like the common crossbill and firecrest.
The contrast between commercial conifer plantations and the highly fragmented Caledonian pine forests might initially appear stark. The ancient Scottish forests, composed primarily of indigenous Scots pines rising above a woodland floor of heather and bilberry, tend to be much more open habitats than plantations. However, there is often a considerable overlap of species preferring a life amongst the needles, with the provenance of the trees often of little importance.
In both forest types, the edges, rides and glades often play host to most of the action. In winter, many small forest birds tend to band together in mixed-species flocks, as they rove the forest for food. So be prepared for substantial periods of scant activity interspersed with frenetic birdwatching bouts, as nomadic flocks of coal tits, goldcrests and treecreepers flit past.
Many forest reserves now make a point of putting out feeders to take the leg-work out of finding the thinly scattered flocks, meaning these locations can be hives of activity in cold winters. As an added bonus, if you happen to be in one of only a handful of remaining areas hosting red squirrels, feeding stations tend to be the easiest location to catch up with our only native squirrel. Finally, mammals such as pine martens are incredibly difficult to track down, even in their Scottish Caledonian strongholds, but evenings represent the best time to catch a glimpse of this marvellous mustelid.
Small forest birds tend to band together in mixedspecies flocks, as they rove the forest for food.