Woodland survey and pictures

Posted by Tanos on Mon 25 Feb 08, 9:46 PM

I had another trip down to the wood at the weekend, armed with GPS receiver, spade, and camera. I've received a proper plan of the boundary as part of the draft contract, but it doesn't show the relative positions of places inside the wood, so I wanted to get a better picture of it all in my head, and look for signs of spring.

Bridgewood is roughly square, and this cleared area cuts into the wood from the gate and curves round. There's another clearing deep in the wood but until now I wasn't sure how central it was: it's centre is at the midpoint of the wood within about 20 metres.

I did the GPS work with a Garmin eTrex H, which is an impressive improvement over the eTrex Venture I bought several years ago. Even though this basic model has a lot less features, the "H" for high sensitivity means it has dramatically improved speed of location and sensitivity in built-up areas or in woods. So I'm glad I stumped up Ł65 to replace the Venture, and all the accessories (bike bracket, protective case, computer cable) work with the eTrex H too

I did briefly consider using my car GPS, but that only provides latitude and longitude, and it's much easier to work with the Ordnance Survey grid since (a) plans are mostly based directly on OS maps already, (b) the Forestry Commission needs plans for felling licenses etc as OS maps, and (c) the OS base unit for both northings and eastings is the metre which makes distance and area calculations straightforward.

After the GPS work I dug a couple of test pits out of curiosity and discovered the levels below ground are ... leaves, leaf mold, and then fibrous peaty soil with lots of roots, unsurprisingly.

Finally, I took some pictures. There were no signs of spring apart from a few shoots just starting on the trees, and although I did surprise a couple of hares, they were off before I had to chance to get the camera. However, I did take a 360 degree sequence in the central clearing, including this one. As you can see, it's not completely devoid of trees but does feel very open after the closely spaced trees and undergrowth of the surrounding part of the wood.

Here is the 360 view with some explanation, which you can rotate with a slider using some HTML magic.

On the legal front, I've now received the result of the searches and there was indeed no plan to build an airport there (last week) and it's not on the site of a disused gas works. I knew all this myself from reading the local plan and looking at maps of the wood in the 19th century, but there you go. As far as I know, we're now all set for signing the contracts and completion.

Edited Sat 18 Apr 09, 1:22 AM by Tanos