CROW (Conserve Reading on Wednesdays)
Wednesday, 6th February 2008
Maiden Erlegh Nature Reserve ~ Bramble

Having spent many hours cutting back brambles to improve access and even uprooting them in woodland areas to encourage spring flowers, today found us cutting back trees which were shading out a bramble patch along a woodland edge.

In fact brambles - otherwise known as blackberries when in fruit in late summer, underlining the duplicity of our relationship with them - are an important wildlife resource providing both food and cover, and constitute a significant part of the understorey in many woodlands.