Although Felsham may not have the extensive woodland of neighbouring parishes such as Bradfield St George, Cockfield and Brettenham, it does possess many valuable trees of hedgerow and farmland. Hedgerows and trees provide a key refuge for wildlife in our intensively farmed parish and provide links for movement between gardens, meadows and woodland coppices. Even isolated trees in fields will support a variety of species but they are vulnerable to close ploughing. They may be particularly important for some bats, birds and insects. Dead trees are also valuable wildlife habitats.
How many farmland trees are there? How does the total compare with a hundred years ago? Do we need to plant more trees? These are all questions that the FELSHAM TREE GROUP hopes to answer. The initial task is to count all farmland trees in the parish using the km grid system on OS maps to organise the work. The second task is to estimate the number of farmland trees that grew in the parish over a 100 years ago. This can be done using the 1st edition of the OS map for Felsham surveyed in 1895. If you would like to help with this project please contact us via the Comments section.
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