Wet. I think that is the word we would all use to describe the last year. The sodden autumn is fresh enough in our minds and April too was the wettest nationally since records began in 1766.

The forest paths and tracks are streaming with water but now the leaves are off the trees one thing that caught my attention recently was the number of young birch trees that are bent over in a bow shape instead of growing up straight. Most of them were damaged in the fall of very wet snow that we had almost exactly a year ago the week before Christmas 1999. The weight of the snow curved over the young trees and they never regained their original shape, an example of how a one-off event can have a permanent effect on trees in woodland.

There was little other snow last winter, but we did have a late fall in April after the resident birds had started nesting and the first summer migrants had arrived. It was so cold some birds deserted their nests. That was the start of an unsettled spring.

Butterflies were scarce and even later in the summer they did not recover. People reported buddleias in their gardens attracting few butterflies and the same applied to normally good butterfly plants in the countryside such as bramble and water mint. The best butterfly event was an influx of clouded yellows during late summer as this species is an uncommon migrant to the Forest.

A feature of the season at Nagshead Nature Reserve was the use of nestboxes by things other than birds.

Dormice were found in two boxes including one box that had a dormouse in for the third successive year. Since there are 520 boxes to choose from it must be assumed that it has been the same dormouse each year.

Other boxes were used by bumble bees (one bumble bee drove out a pair of pied flycatchers), by wasps and by a bat. At Highnam Woods a pair of blue tits using one nestbox laid fifteen eggs and succeeded in rearing all fifteen young!

At Symonds Yat the peregrine falcons had a good year fledging four young, all of which were males. Symonds Yat Rock is a superb site for watching birds of prey and this year ten different species were seen there including an osprey which stayed for two days in May and gave a spectacular display fishing the river.

There were encouraging reports from the Forest's restored heathlands all year. At the new site at Tidenham a pair of nightjars reared two young and at both Crabtree Hill and the ancient wilderness of Wigpool heather is recolonising the areas better than anyone expected.

Within the last few weeks excellent news has come in that Gloucestershire Environmental Trust, using Landfill Tax money donated by Cory Environmental, have agreed to fund a major work programme at Tidenham that will involve ground preparation to make vegetation management easier and fencing part of the site so it can be grazed to keep down regenerating scrub.

Now as the year ends winter birds are back in the Forest. Wherever alders grow along streams flocks of siskins may be seen feeding acrobatically on the alder cones.

In late November the first goosanders were back on Cannop Ponds. These ducks, the females grey with red heads and the males pink with bottle green heads, frequent both Forest ponds and the River Wye during the winter and are hard to miss being one of our largest ducks.

Much more difficult to see are hawfinches, the largest but most secretive of our native finches.

They stay with us all year but in winter they gather in flocks and I hear that recently a flock has been seen near Parkend.

If you want to look for them over the Christmas break a good place to try is the woodland between Parkend church and railway station where they sometimes feed in the hornbeam trees.

Good luck and best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

IVAN PROCTOR