The Friends of Haughurst Copse

Our aim is to restore the woodland into good health.

Our Objective is to make it a better place for wildlife to live and humans to enjoy.

We tend to mostly work during the winter months as working in the woodland when birds are nesting and other wildlife is breeding is insensitive and disturbing nesting birds is a criminal offence.

Winter work includes coppicing; protecting the stools left after coppicing from deer grazing; hedge laying using materials from on site; cleaning out bird boxes and making and setting up new ones. The work is physical and requires good team work. We usually end with a vegetarian lunch enjoyed together.

Spring might see us planting whips to replace some trees lost or to bulk up the hedges we are creating around the site. These are for the benefit of small mammals, insects and birds.

During the summer, we have events such as guided dawn chorus or bat walks, moth trapping evenings and a bioblitz so we remain involved with the Copse.  We might do a bit of 'bracken bashing' to keep the amount of bracken under control or make and place dormouse footprint tunnels to see if we can find evidence of dormice on site.  As the woodland evolves, so our tasks will change. Everything we do is entirely weather dependent so some years we get to do more than others.

We have a Community Account into which any money from donations is put for projects such as improving footpaths. We also dream of an outdoor learning area being available for school children - but that's one for the future!

Huge thanks to Lib Dem Borough Councillor, Kerry Morrow, who gave us a generous grant so we could buy new and more efficient tools to make the work easier.

Do come and join us. We'd love to have you on board!