1st Session at the New Woodland Hide
It’s been a while since I spent time in a woodland hide, but I’m delighted to say that this morning that all changed.
Our home is surrounded with forestry plantations just brimming with wildlife. This summer Lyndsey and I have spent time searching our local woods looking for a suitable site to develop. Two months ago we hung three nut feeders in a pine forest very close to our home, within ten days we had the first visit by a Red Squirrel.
We already know this site reasonably well and know it contains a rich array of nature, Badgers, Roe Deer, Pine Marten, Owls, Red Squirrels, Woodpeckers, Tree Creepers, Jays, Sparrow hawks all of these species, plus many more live here. I’m not saying we’re going to be able to photograph them all, but you never know!
This morning was my first session at this location and it didn’t take long for me to realise how much I’d missed working from a hide, I don’t know what it is but there’s something magical about being immersed into the heart of busy and bustling woodland. I love the periods of activity when it’s all happening and it seems you’re surrounded by life, equally I enjoy the spells of inactivity when nothing much is happening. I find this causes ones senses to become very acute, my hearing becomes super sensitive, hear a Tree Creeper scrabbling about on a tree from 30m away, no problem!
I also notice that when you’re in a woodland hide time seems to just drift by, hours seems to just melt away.
As well as the usual suspects making an appearance this morning, it didn’t take long for a Jay to pay its first visit. I’d been watching them from afar for the past half hour but I really hadn’t expected them to accept the hide so quickly, we only put it in this location last night. The Jay made five visits to the feeding station before heading deep into the forest to join the rest of its family.
A juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker was the next visitor. She was very nervy and really didn’t like the noise of the camera shutter, saying that she did return on numerous occasions.
I left the hide after a few hours feeling very pleased with the results of the first morning spent there, no sign of the Squirrels, but I was a bit late getting up this morning. It will take many months to establish exactly where the best light and backgrounds are but if this morning’s efforts are a taste of things to come, we’re in for a treat.