Old ladies of the forest

When you see huge Beech in the forest with multiple smaller (though still substantial) trunks emerging from the main trunk a couple of meters from the ground you can be pretty sure you're looking at an ancient tree, one which easily pre-dates the end of the 17th century. You can know that as in 1698 it was forbidden by government act, the  ‘Act for the Increase and Preservation of Timber in the New Forest’ to coppice or pollard the forests' Oak or Beech, so a pollarded tree would've already been mature and pollarded by then. Making these trees, what, 400 or more years old. Those who've survived thus far are reaching the limits of their lifespans; interestingly a pollarded Beech will live considerably longer than one left untouched, this is common of various managed trees. The usual course of decline is for them to lose trunk after trunk over a number of years, although even then with all the crown trunks fallen I've seen them endure by throwing out growth from what remains. This old lady's lost three crown trunks so far, though still stands firm. Remember when you're with them you're stood with a life which broke earth long before even the dawn of the industrial revolution, let alone the modern age.

Welcomed rain

 

The recent rains have given even the smallest of the forest streams their voices back, and the brooks are back to babbling their song as they pass. The forest has enjoyed the rain, looking lush and verdant for it.

Warwickslade

Once the straightest of straight Victorian forestry drains Warwickslade Cutting was restored to a meandering course back in the noughties, and now both stream and environs are re-established.

Late to the game

 

Just as the buds begin to fatten, and the canopy prepares to come into leaf, a touch late the forest finely looks comfortable with being wet. It's been another in a growing parade of weird weather winters; no rhyme or reason to the weather, instead a constant whack a mole of unrelated weather types.

Green dream

The verdancy of the freshly clothed forest overwhelms the senses.

The woods get wetter.

With each subsequent visit to Brinken the woods get wetter. Beyond restoring more valuable natural bog woodland, one of the benefits of restoring the forest's streams and drains to their natural states, has been that the transit of water through the forest is greatly slowed, meaning more water remaining in the landscape, stopping flooding down stream. From now until well into spring the Warwickslade/Brinken area will remain mostly underwater, all that'll change will be the depth.  It's an area where the walking never gets boring.

Gorgeous

 

I've so many things to be grateful for, and I am, truly.  One of those things would most definitely the forest. The forest is a beautiful soul, what ever you need of it, it provides willingly; a confidant, a crutch, a companion, a teacher and more. This morning the forest was particularly stunning, the subtly changing colours of the canopy, the light through the stands reflected on wet woodland's mirrored pools and streams; it's embrace along with the gentle kiss of Autumn Sun was most welcomed. Pure joy.

Red Ivy

At this time of the year the forest is all greens and browns, so any hint of another colour is amplified, noticeable even from a distance.

Rainbow

When the low autumn sun broke through the heavy grey blanket that raced across the sky, there was a lovely light out in the forest today. It was a day that didn't know what camp to stand with, light rains fell as the sun shone, what my Mum used to call 'a fox's riddle and a monkey's dance'. I have no idea what it meant or where it came from (she was brought up in India), though I taught it to my kids too. Beautiful day of myriad rainbows.

Warwickslade restoration

Back to Warwickslade Cutting (as was) today, after yesterdays downpour the stream overflowed it's margins to flood large areas of it's surrounding woodland. I walk the forest often and over the years have seen this area change through the restoration process, though it's changed so much that at times it can be difficult to orientate myself.  It struck me, that if you'd not walked here for 10 years (or so), even if before you knew the area well, you'd probably be at a loss to orientate yourself. The woodland wet with standing water (some deep), a stream runs through, though where exactly you can always be sure, the woodland environ is lush and green, and the everything's alive; it really wasn't like that before. As the old meandering watercourses are restored and the woodland returns to its wetter 'bog woodland' nature, you get a hint of how wild and inhospitable an environment it must have been in ages past when the weather was against you. Today though, it was just stunning.

Old Oaky

Dotted through the stands of maturing Oaks and Beech are the isolated remnants of a more ancient forest. In the woodland adjoining Warwickslade is one such tree, a gnarled old Oak, battered by time and the elements it rests in the shade of its younger companions. These isolated individuals predate the enclosures and admiralty plantations, and speak of a far older more open landscape, though still a landscape which was not as natural as you might imagine; no, that landscape was long gone even in the middle ages. Rather what you'd have seen even in the Medieval period, when these older trees were but saplings, was already the consequence of thousands of years of human intervention and destruction begun by in the slash and burn land clearances of our Neolithic ancestors. Still it's nice to see these older trees, unbridled by the conformity required for timber production, growing to what ever form pleases them. But oh to see the wild wood when stretched from shore to shore, what a sight it must have been.