Rainbow

 

That's two chances of a pot of gold then.

Purple Moor-grass

The torn grasses which last week storm Eunice chased across the heathland, now clog the puddles and seasonal ponds on the plains. The grass is Purple Moor-grass (Molinia caerulea) a native species common on wet acid soils like the New Forest; though I understand that due to changing climatic and environmental conditions the grass is now out performing and choking it's fellow heathland floral comrades, with the potential to change the nature of the heathland; that would explain it's abundance. Not good.

Now you see them...

Now you see them, soon you wont. When I've seen change in the forest I've often thought...'I should've taken a before shot'; this time I have. Walking up the gravelled forestry track through Roe enclosure from Greenford Bottom we periodically saw cleared and marked areas on the side of the track, cleared in preparation for harvested timber to be stacked; felling was about to take place, and this block of conifers in the Bratley Plain corner of Roe being freshly marked (notice the pink spots) are prime candidates. There are quite a number of deciduous trees within the block, and I imagine they'll survive the cull, creating a nice block of open woodland.

Ice wings

 

The puddles which pock the tracks that cross Bratley Plain looked as if dozens of pairs of huge insect wings had been discarded in them. Cool.

Milkham

Until recently it'd been several years since since I'd walked over Bratley Plain way or the mosaic woodlands below it, and oh how Milkham Enclosure is changed. I remember last time I was this way they'd just begun harvesting some of the coniferous blocks, particularly those bordering the Linford Brook, remodelling and restoring the surrounding landscape as they went. That restoration process is now well on it's way to completion, and it looks great. Whole new vistas have been opened up. The conifers now mostly gone Linford Brook runs through it's cleared collect, winding through thin smears of newly freed deciduous trees hugging the embryonic brook here and there, before disappearing again into the stands.

Buckherd Bottom

 

Buckherd Bottom

Bratley Plain barrow (one of)

Above is one of a cluster of seven Bronze Age Barrows which themselves form part of the larger and well dispersed Bratley Plain Barrow cemetery. This barrow is one of the better preserved of the group, at about 7m wide, and reduced by time and robbing/'excavation' from it's original height to about 1m or.  In the centre of the mound is an irregular hollow, evidence of the earlier robbing/'excavation'. The mound would've been surrounded by a ditch which is now for the most part filled with debris excavated from the mound, with only a small partially filled section remaining visible. There are in excess of 400 barrows remaining across the new forest suggesting a sizeable Bronze Age population.

Commoners' Passage

The forest can be a challenging landscape to navigate in the winter.  The plains, whether high or low, are for the most part waterlogged, and the hidden boggy hollows of this undulating world are thoroughly sodden. It's easy for your walk to turn into an arduous soggy trudge. The forest would be impassible without track-ways like 'Commoners' Passage', which would have been serving locals and travellers for centuries. It says on a commemorative plaque the track was restored in 2004 (you'd not have known), it just shows how such passages weather, as although the short causeway over the bog remains in fair condition, the track itself has been heavily degraded in places by countless walkers, riders, cyclists and ponies. On the ridge above, a well preserved, though robbed out, Bronze Age Round Barrow is testament to the history of human activity in the area, and the sanctity of these isolated wet places to our ancestors.  

Frogger

Checking past posts recording when I've first see frog spawn, they've all been between 28th of January and 4th of February. That's quite a tight grouping. I always think it's too early, with the chance of devastating frosts still too high. But hey, what do I know, frogs have been about since at least the Paleocene (66 million years ago), so they must know what they're doing.

Graffiti by Camo

It's always nice discovering art unexpectedly. Out here in the forest too, there's an added something. A pleasantly jarring juxtaposition between strikingly coloured graffiti set in a modernist concrete underpass which stands isolated, a piece of urban furniture abandoned in nature.  I love things like that. Some of the fresh graffiti in the Lazy Bushes underpass. Nice.