Sherwood is a royal forest in Nottinghamshire, England. It is well known for being associated with the legends of Robin Hood. The meaning of Sherwood is Shire wood and sometimes used to be referred to as Nottingham forest. The forest is a remnant of an older and much larger royal forest which is where the name Sherwood derived from it's status as the shire wood of Nottingham-shire. Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve today encompasses 423.2 hectares of land surrounding the village of Edwinstowe.
Wildlife
The forest inhabits Grey squirrels as well as 1500 species of beetle and 200 types of spiders. Occasionally there are birds in the forest depending on the season such as the wood-lark or tree-pipit, as of lately the number of wood-larks have reduced and more often there are no birds present in the forest.
Most squirrels are omnivores and they eat almost anything they find. Most squirrels live in trees so they often find nuts and also eat things like seeds, berries, pine cones and sometimes bird's eggs and insects. Tree squirrels usually store food during autumn to eat in the winter whilst grounds squirrels don't store food and hibernate during winter. Grey squirrels tend to cause problems to the population of red squirrels in Britain as they compete more successfully than red squirrels for food and habitat, they are larger and more robust.
Grey squirrels are currently causing problems to Sherwood forest as they are over populating and cause damage such as eating bird's eggs or small chicks and ripping bark off trees which eventually leads to the tree dying. The fact that they are also breeding quickly means that they nibble on most of the acorns in the forest so the seed will never grow into a tree.
Plants
Sherwood Forest is home to the famous Major Oak which was Robin Hood's hideaway according to local folklore. The oak tree is between 800 and 1,000 years old and was featured on the 2005 BBC TV programme "Seven Natural Wonders" as one of the natural wonders of the midlands. scattered amongst the woods are more than 1,000 large oaks most of which are known to be more than 500 years old. The Major Oak is the largest of the group and is nearly twice that age. These oaks owe their shape and character to time when grazing animals such a deer and sheep kept the woodland open.
In medieval times, bark and acorns from the trees in Sherwood Forest would substitute for flour in bread and dough cakes during times of hardship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Forest
http://www.eyemead.com/Sherwood.htm
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel
http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/grey-squirrels-welcome-visitor-woodland-pest/story-14305380-detail/story.html#axzz2Q9YqDuAw
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/sense_of_place/facts/sherwood_forest.shtml
http://www.nottmbirds.org.uk/sites/SherwoodCP.html
http://www.scottishsquirrels.org.uk/squirrel-facts/
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