Red Kite Rural Services provides woodland, deer and estate management to clients throughout the UK, find out what we have been working on recently.
We are looking for an individual to join our small team.
Due to continued growth and expansion of the business we are looking for an enthusiastic, skilled and adaptable team members to join the company. The role is varied with handcutting, machine operation and groundworks all undertaken. Some chainsaw experience would be useful and flexible conditions.
Please contact us if you’re interested in applying for this varied and satisfying job.
Time seems to have flown past since our last update! Work has continued apace despite the best efforts of the Great British weather over the winter of 2019-2020. As always we are mindful of ground conditions and there was a large amount of felled timber from the tail end of 2019 that we did not extract until late spring 2020 - the forwarder proving it’s worth by hauling more timber in the small windows available and leaving no marks.
Extraction route after 90 tons of timber has come out on the forwarder.
With the ever present threat of Ash dieback making the felling of Ash trees even more dangerous we have taken an early step to safeguard staff and clients by investing in a grapple saw for the excavator. This allows us to dismantle ash trees from the safety of a guarded cab. It allows for excellent control of the limbs as they are cut and speeds the tidy up by allowing them to be placed precisely for further processing or chipping. This set up is also excellent for roadside trees with out the requirement for an arb team.
Vosch Grapple Saw
Things seem to have been continuing apace - that’s the excuse for not updating our news blog particularly regularly anyway…
We’ve been busy only a large regeneration felling and thinning operation (slightly bigger than we’d originally anticipated anyway) and almost got it completed before the weather broke. The majority of the brash is also being removed from this site to give a clear floor and facilitate some understorey replanting.
A slight delay to getting the last of the timber out due to the rain means we won’t damage the woodland floor by tracking it and creating ruts - better to wait and get it right under our light footprint ethos.
As a result the site is not quite finished yet but here’s some pictures to give you an idea - completion photo’s should follow shortly, weather permitting.
Making the most of the dry weather we’ve been felling with ongoing thinning and ride widening work being completed. We’ve also put in a few new gun lines for a local shoot to make some of their shooting days a bit more challenging for the guns.
Typically as we get to the end of the cutting and just about to start extracting the heavens open once again. Trying to be as sensitive as possible we’ve delayed extracting on those sites where damage to soil structure might occur.
We recently managed to capture this image of a Scheduled Ancient Monument we’ve been working on (when time and conditions allow) which gives a good idea as to the difference as to before and after.
The bottom right hand side is what the whole site used to look like, with mid left and top right showing most recent works and top left showing works undertaken 6 months ago.
We’re looking forwards to getting the last of the timber off and then clearing all brash from the site to return it to what it should be - and ancient village!
We’re out and about (dodging or not in most cases rain and recent high winds). Some recent coppice works we completed gives an idea of the potential transformations that can be completed in a woodland. These works were done to improve the habitat for the widlife and also increase the resilience of the woodland by varying the age structure. As an additional benfit it has provided some nice timber for firewood and a biomass boiler!
The above images show the before during and after of a part of the coppice.
It’s all go as we make the most of the dry weather and hopefully with the cold weather approaching, ground conditions will continue to be favourable.
Ash Coppice completed using the harvester.
There’s been a bit of everything going on!… the harvester is out and cutting coppice as well as doing some work on more sensitive sites. Timber is being hauled out and is stacked up ready for sale, and not a mark left on the ground as to where we’ve been travelling either!
And to cap it all off we still are still enjoying some early morning’s undertaking deer management commitments.
A cracking start to the year and we look forwards to continuing to work with clients both established and new!
We’d like to express our thanks to all our customers (returning and new) over 2018. It has been a busy year with some significant changes to the business and we thank all our clients for their patience as we have worked through some teething problems with new kit!
We wish everyone a Merry Xmas and a Happy new year and look forwards to catching up with many in 2019.
A busy few moths since our last update…. to include an updated website!
The variety included some pond work, timber extraction, scrub clearance prior to felling timber and old building demolition to allow a disused paddock to be grazed once again. The tree shear has also been busy, coppicing a hedge to make taccess onto a busy main road safer.
The harvester’s been out on some big Larch thinning. A first thinning of a young hardwood plantation has opened the wood up, expanded the rides and improved accesibility, especially in the run up to winter with the increased rainfall.
Luckily we had a bit of assistance moving the harvester - a little quicker than our normal tractor and low loader…
Deer management is also continuing apace, now that the Doe season’s are opening we are starting to get onto herd management to allow for woodland regeneration and healthy herds.
The last few months have been busy! Works sites have been particularly tricky to operate in/access due to the amout of rain we have had over the last few months. Opportunities to extract timber have taken when site conditions allow. Despite all the rain we have continued to cut in anticipation of the ground drying out.
Recent works include cutting some overstood ash coppice which will be used in the estate biomass and the excess for firewood
Coppice plot before works
Coppice plot after felling smaller stems to leave some standards.
The timber produce will be left until conditions dry out with extraction later in the spring to minimise damaging the soil structure.
A thinning operation was undertaken on a SSSI to allow more light to the forest floor. We also respaced a christmas tree plantation that had been left since it's original planting. This meant the trees were of poor quality as they had all been drawn up , the respacing should allow them to 'bulk out' to improve the potential timber yield.
Hardwood thinning
Xmas tree re-spacing
When ground conditions and site's have allowed we've extracted timber where we can. The majority of this has gone to the fuel the estate's own biomass boiler.
Timber extraction
We've had the tree shear out again. Reducing the height of some hedges and coppicing others to ground level.
Hedge before reduction
Looking back up the hedge after reducing
The new equipment has dramatically changed how we work, with larger compartments and trees now being handled efficiently. We are getting more proficient with the harvester and it surprises us each time with the production and capacity provided by such a small machine! We will do a full update on the equipment in a separate post once we have used it for a bit longer, but already it has tripled the output and meant we don't have to manhandle or reduce so many big logs! always welcome.
If you have any questions about the equipment or would like to discuss how we can help in your woodlands please feel free to give us a call or send an email Contact Us
For more photo's please go to our facebook page here where you can see these and photo's of other works.
