Several wild windy days have started shaking apples from our two trees, which is good news for wasps, ants and small rodents, but less so for us. I’ve just started picking now – the Egremont Russets are starting to come away from the twigs fairly easily. This means…
Tag: trees
We’ve been lucky enough to have a long dry and warm spell this autumn, so it was hard to resist the call of the local forest today. Charmouth Forest on the borders of East Devon and West Dorset is a mix of broadleaf woodland and coniferous forestry, and…
An impression of English sycamore woods in the spring. Blue flowers and a blue sky of subtly different colour. These lesser-known undercliffs are to the East of Lyme Regis, and this is where the old road to Charmouth used to run until it slipped away and had to be…
A friend and I went up Pilsdon Pen to watch the midsummer sun rise. Despite a very chill breeze at just after 5am, we were rewarded by this wonderful view to the south, with the Marshwood Vale draped with early morning mist. Like many rural areas, the vale…
One of a series of abstract impressions of a beautiful English wood at bluebell time. This can only begin to convey the joy of spending time in this magical place as dusk descends: the heady scent of the flowers, the clear song of thrushes high in the canopy,…
Dartmoor is commonly thought of as a bleak and treeless waste, but is home to a small number of ancient oak woodlands. In these sheltered woods, mossy boulders and lichen-festooned branches combine to lend a primæval atmosphere, largely unchanged since lowland England was almost entirely forested in Neolithic…
This beech avenue is part of a grand estate, rather than a humble farm track like the one at Bindon. After an exploratory visit to find a good viewpoint, this photo was snatched in a few minutes just as the winter sun was setting, balancing my tripod on…
A companion to White Wood in spring, this photo was taken just a few metres, and six months, from the other one. The bright russet of the bracken caught my eye, as did the repeated wavering patterns of the oak trunks. I didn’t appreciate, until I saw the…
Wistman’s Wood is an ancient dwarf oakwood on Dartmoor, with a floor of wonderful mossy boulders. I visited it on a cool misty day, and chose this view of the trees silhouetted against the bracken-covered hillside beyond. Overcast helps to accentuate the rich colours – perhaps surprising in…