Blog

ElmBy Rob Rowe (April 2020) This time of year is Spring greens time and trees are among my favourite food particularly the young buds and leaves of beech and lime. However the very best to my taste buds is elm. The seeds not the leaves. Many people are really...

Alder WoodBy Rob Rowe (April 2020) Somehow with each visit the wood expands. With each crossing and recrossing it divides into more and more parts. The sum of the parts  larger than the whole. Synergistic magic. A fallen log becomes a fungal world. A dead standing...

7 fungiBy Rob Rowe (April 2020) Many of these bracket fungi are tough perennials. They will survive for several years and grow a new ring each year. Others are still quite tough and leathery but only last for one season. Some fungi are very specific to which tree they...

Startled!By Rob Rowe (March 2020) I am startled by a pair of mallards rising from the river directly below me, as I flush them into panicked flight. Lifting me too, from inward thought, to where I stand below the silent rookery. Why their absence? A solitary raven...

CrinoidBy Rob Rowe (March 2020) Sitting on the bare soil under the oak tree are two similar objects. Superficially similar in size and shape. Both oval and about three inches long. One an owl pellet; brown like bran, rain-washed to reveal the protruding mass of tiny...

Woodland training a great successBy Gary Cowell (March 2020) Volunteer, Knighton Community Woodland Group We are pleased to announce that our Introduction to Woodland Management training course has been a great success, even though the last day had to be postponed due...

SightingsBy Rob Rowe (March 2020) This tiny seedling only 8mm tall is the fruit of a lot of hard labour last year! One of many thousand, it  is a yellow rattle seedling a few days old, which has germinated from 'green hay', collected from nearby species-rich meadows...

Seen Before HeardBy Rob Rowe (March 2020) Suddenly my head lifts, ears straining. It is a grey morning but that sound is liquid gold-laced across the sky. The first curlew. Heard before seen. For a moment there is a slight doubt and then there it is again, clear...

Notes from the HillBy Simon Cooter and the Natural England staff at Rigmoreoak (March 2020) One of the first signs of spring on the hill is when frogspawn appears in the pools dotted around the hill. Some of these small ponds are natural and have formed where there is...