Today I went to Buxton Heath for an activity organized by the conservation club of my university. I knew I would need to do some field work there. But, I did not expect… it was tree-cutting! The only tool is… saw, not electrical one, but the hand saw. God, I have never used any saw in my whole life, not mentioning using it to cut trees!

Of course, nothing is impossible. I learnt then. I learnt that I should not move the saw horizontally but slanting downward to the land. I learnt that I should not use only a small part of the teeth of the saw, but needed to use the whole length of the teeth. I learnt that when I have cut half width of the tree trunk, I should pull the whole branch down so that I could easily cut the other half otherwise the saw would be stuck in the trunk. I learnt that after I have cut about two-third of the tree trunk, I would have no more strength to cut the rest and then needed to try to pull the branch down until it was completely broken.

Needless to say, when I returned to my room after this physical exercise, hands and legs ached. And there was more, I suddenly found there was a three inches (7.5 cm) long hole at the left botton part of my trousers! It must have been torn out when I tried very hard to cut the tree but sitting on a cut-down trunk (because I was too tired then). Now, of the only two summer trousers I brought from Hong Kong to the U.K., one was gone forever.

We needed to cut two patchs of trees (For the first picture, the trees at the left and front side. For the second picture, all trees in the picture). They were willow trees but were not the weeping willow which I was familiar with.

Here is the look before cutting (see pictures below).

Here is the look when a large part of the target trees have been cut down (see pictures below).

Here is the look after finishing cutting (see pictures below).

Here is the remains of the trees which I have cut down (see pictures below).

After one hour of work, we had the tea break. (It seems the British people like to have tea breaks after one or two hours of work. At least the cleaners of my hall residence have many tea breaks during their working time.) An old warden of Buxton Heath boiled the water for us. (There are only two wardens in Buxton Heath - that old warden and a young warden who drove us from the campus to Buxton Heath. All of them are volunteers.)

Buxton Heath is about 10 miles north of Norwich. It is a heathland, the dry type (the other type is wet heathland). Why we need to cut down the trees there? Well, it has taken me some time to understand it.

Heaths are habitats characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, found on mainly infertile acidic soils.  They were probably created as forest clearance began several thousand years ago to make way for crops. Primitive farming techniques could not prevent the leaching of nutrients, rain washing the nutrients out of sandy soil. Crops failed, the land was abandoned and these poor soils provided a unique communities of plants and animals which have adapted to living there. Lack of management allows trees such as pines and birches to return to heathlands, eventually turning areas back into woodland.

In short, we cut down the trees in Buxton Heath because we do not want it to turn to woodland and affect the initial habitat of the heathland.

Our target trees were located in the marshes, so we all needed to wear wellies (plastic boots).

 A snake? No, this is a legless lizard called Slow Worm although it looks like a snake (snakes do not have but lizards have eyelids). It was found on the way. (It has very good camouflage)

 Blue and grey sky - a typical English weather - sunny, cloudy and rain, all at the same time.