Shooters Hill Woodlands Working Party

12th April 2025

Oxleas Wood

What a beautiful morning for our Saturday Woodland Conservation Session in Oxleas Wood (SHWWP) with 16 people clocking up 48 hours. Activities involved coppicing, tree laying, removal of invasive saplings, pond digging, creating a stag beetle pyramid and building another hibernaculum.

Busy volunteers clearing trees which overhang the pond to prevent leaves decomposing and turning into mud. Others are digging the mud out from around the edges. This will be used to provide refuges for amphibians.

These activities, originally selected for our Pond Dig in March, were abandoned on discovering some early frog spawn. Imagine our delight when we discovered not only some mature frogs but also some froglets; most likely from last year’s breeding season. Needless to say, we left them well alone and focused our activities in different areas.

What an amazing day! Our first stag beetle pyramid to be built in Oxleas Wood.