"Get into woodlands", said the previous Duke, now a king. If only he'd cared about the kingfisher. (Royalty say that walking in woods improves your mental health, but their strategy for old Cornish woods wipes out the bird life.)
The Duchy of Cornwall acquired a big old woodland ten miles from the Tamar in 2019, and a clear-felling of some sections was completed by October ( bit.ly/perocto .) Parts that aren't now devoid of all trees, are thinned to a level where no deer can feel secure. (That pleasant sense of concealment is gone for a human too.) Duchy immediately began to cull the indigenous Roe deer in 2019, by employing three sharpshooters who work in cooperation with the county Council. (Associates have been closing the wood for weekend 'hunts' to get the solitary small survivors.) For generations, the biodiversity at Perdredda Wood was a nature-lovers' best-kept secret, but now the place is 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 had never been like that in over a hundred years. June 2020 (above): Broadleaf trees are near the middle of the distant cro...