When we first walked around Blackley Farm in East Devon there was a lot of gesturing at an impenetrable wilderness. This experience returned upon starting our management intervention on this rare Springline Mire habitat. The boundaries of the area were somewhere beyond the thick succession of bramble, alder, birch and willow. Whilst cutting and stacking the trees it seemed an endless task that stretched before us…then suddenly Adam was in sight and we had met in the middle! Although this felt like a lot of tree cutting, we were in fact using the traditional management technique of coppicing. Looking back over the cut stacks of wood there was a glade where before there had been woodland scrub, a huge transformation and one which felt like positive land management. The species we had cleared had established over the top of this rare Springline mire habitat, and we look forward to seeing the blossoming seed bank next growing season. Now that this succession woodland is under control, we hope to see indicator species of this habitat growing, such as Sundew, Marsh St. John’s wort and bog asphodel.
