Effects of coppice management on woodland breeding birds

Abstract

A frequent justification for the use of coppicing in woodland conservation is that it benefits breeding birds, particularly the nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos). This view stems partly from a study at Ham Street Woods National Nature Reserve, Kent, which concluded that: ‘a return to the traditional mixed coppice-with-standards management on nature reserves, and other woods where financial return is deemed to be less urgent than conservation, would be desirable in the long-term interests of the nightingale in Britain’ (Stuttard and Williamson, 1971 Stuttard and Williamson, 1971). Surprisingly, this remained the sole study of the effects of coppice management on bird populations until the late 1980s when the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) collated data from a series of coppice woods. This chapter reviews these findings with the purpose of evaluating coppice management as a conservation tool in managing woodland songbird populations.