"Get into woodlands", said the last Duke. If only he'd cared about the kingfisher.
"to protect and restore Nature", he said in 2022, but the Duke acquired a big woodland near Plymouth in 2019, and there was a grim clear-felling of all trees in some sections. Areas that aren't now stripped bare, are thinned to a point where no deer can feel secure, because all sense of concealment is gone. (Duchy immediately began to cull the indigenous Roe deer in 2019 by employing the three sharpshooters who work for the Council, and associates now do weekend 'hunts' to try and get the solitary small survivors.) For generations, Perdredda Wood was a best kept nature-lovers' secret, but it's almost now just a little-known wasteland, biologically speaking. In the western half on Saturday 9 Aug 2025, furthest from the A374, there wasn't a single Jay or Woodpecker calling. It's never been like that in over a hundred years.. June 2020 (above): Tall broadleaf trees are near the middle of the cross-section above, farmed conifers are on each side. Wil...