Yesterday I had a nice walk through the woods. I wanted to have a look at some felling work I knew had been going on during a period of fairly wet weather and see what the results were like. (Thread, 1/)

The area in question had been a fairly even aged crop of Norway spruce that had been planted along a burn (no buffers, pre #UKFS). The forester was planning to remove the crop of spruce away from the burn and replant / regen with alder, willow, oak and other native broadleaves 2/

The woodland is not designated as a Planted Ancient Woodland Site (PAWS), but further downstream there are areas. It would not be too much of a stretch to assume this would have been broadleaved riparian woodland in the not too distant past. 3/

This area is rich with hairy wood ant (Formica pubescens) which relies on sunny woodland clearings and rides to build its nests using pine or spruce needles. A nice side effect of the felling will be increased sunlight and better conditions for this species over the next years 4/

I was also really impressed at how little ground damage there was, given this was down in the valley bottom next to a watercourse. The operators had used brash from the felled trees perfectly and protected their timber extraction route, which could have easily become rutted 5/

Given this was such a long, thin strip to work, there would have been a lot of traffic back and forth, especially to the far end to reach all of the timber. The results speak to a well planned operation and conscientious operators keen to achieve best results for the wood. 6/

The area to the left of the picture will continue to be thinned and managed as a productive Scots pine woodland (this area is a red squirrel stronghold ), and this one burn is just part of a much larger forested complex that delivers many benefits including growing timber... 7/

The forester was not forced into removing the conifers from this watercourse; it was their own recognition of bringing the management of the woodland in line with #UKFS and sacrificing a relatively small area in terms of productivity to bring extra benefits. #ForestsThatWork - 8/

In any case, all this is to say; this is what modern day, mixed, commercial forestry can look like. I feel like it needs to be spoken about as there are so many misconceptions. I also found a really nice rock in the woods and sat on it like Simba on Pride Rock.

I don't do many selfies but thanks for coming to my #ForestsThatWork TED talk and bearing with me while I put the kids to bed! Always happy to recognise good practice - Ben Anderton @Edwin_Thompson is not on Twitter but was responsible for planning and managing the site.
Kbye!