“If I had the time and the money I would love to tidy this woodland and open it up so that I could just come up here and sit, watching”.

The Story of the Woodland Wildlife Hide.

This hide is located within a small private woodland on my Grandparent’s farm in Derbyshire. The woodland is truly wild and in fact up until recently was only entered on a couple of occasions each year, one of which was when my Gran would go and collect moss and holly for her Christmas wreath. One Christmas I went up to the farm to visit my Grandparent’s and whilst photographing hares in the field that surrounds the woodland, I noticed a fox making her way into the far corner. Full of excitement I returned to the farmhouse to tell my Grandparent’s, not quite as excited as me my Gran simply replied, “oh we get quite a few foxes in there” so I went straight online and purchased a couple of trail cameras.

A few of days later, trail cameras in hand, I returned to the woodland, only this time with my Gran came too. Back then you had to take a scythe with you to create your own path through the maze of brambles and hawthorn, it was a real challenge. You would come out looking like you had just spent an hour wrestling Freddie Krueger. Ok maybe not quite but it was so wild and overgrown.

Whilst clearing a path to the middle of the woodland my Gran said to me that she had always wanted to do something with the woodland and that if she had the time and the money she would love to tidy and open it up so that she could just come up here and sit watching. So I decided to put up some bird feeders, leave out some trail cameras and open up a pathway so that she could do exactly that. Sadly though not long after opening it up, she got diagnosed with cancer and never really got the chance to enjoy it, whilst I was of course heartbroken, this really motivated me to get the woodland in a more usable condition. I wanted it to become a place that people could go to and enjoy wildlife and most importantly a place that I could go to and always be reminded of my Gran.

Now aptly named Shirley’s Wood, the place has slowly been transformed. There is now an easy access gate, with wood chip pathways leading you around the woodland to a wildlife hide. The hide itself looks out over the very spot that I put my first trail camera and in the spring becomes carpeted in bluebells. We have a large variety of woodland birds visiting and more recently we have been getting visits from buzzards and sparrowhawks.

To maximise photo opportunities we have added a reflection pool to the hide, which, on the right day makes for some wonderful images but the hope is, based on trail camera results from last spring, the foxes will be visiting daily. Two springs ago I had the pleasure of watching a vixen raise her cubs from this very woodland.

Like all things it is still a work in progress but if you want a spot that’s isolated, where you can sit in comfort and watch/photograph wildlife then it really is just that!

I could write all day about it but you’ll have to just come and see for yourself.