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A dead zone

Writer's picture: CroneCrone

I explored a new wood - only to discover that half the trees (mainly oaks) had fallen and the other half had dropped most of their branches.

It's really strange. Big oaks seem to have lived there perfectly happily for over a hundred years and them, system collapse. I wonder if the drought followed by a high water table did for some, which seem to have fallen recently. Or if the land's polluted. The roots seem to have rotted through fairly close to the surface, so perhaps it is a water table issue.


I heard a dunnock, saw a pheasant and then something quiet and large with pale tawny feathers flew through a little area of baby trees close by me. I hoped a raptor, but it was probably just a pheasant being quiet.


Baby trees - yes - they've planted up a little copse. Sadly, the fallen old trees have done for some of them.

You wonder how these can survive given the fate of the older ones.


This area is not farmed - it's surrounded by arable fields with the railway line about 300 yards to the west. It has been left because it has a small river on one side and drainage ditches around it - making a sort of island.


In the bank of one of the ditches, I saw a hole and found a latrine. Badger! I thought.

But there were no other holes anywhere nearby. Which is odd. I got excited that it might be an otter holt - there are otters a few miles to the north, but the river doesn't seem big enough to support them. And I doubt there are any fish.


Another thrill - I thought I'd found the skull of a baby badger.


But instead it is, I think, part of a bird. I saw something very like this attached to more of a bird. Besides, it was very light. And the lack of eye sockets and nostrils... and teeth... should have suggested it was not a skull.


Before the dead wood, I found an interesting willow. The word for tree is world. It has its own rivers and soil and landscape and colours. And some rather charming spherical cankers - which seemed to be made of solid willow wood.

See, I started off all 'oh how amazing!' It's not my fault that death is trailing me.


**** Dan Jacklin, a tree expert at the Trust, suggests that the oaks may have succumbed to Sudden Oak Death.


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maplekey4
2023年1月18日

I read the thing on Sudden Oak Death, Good Grief! Sounds serious! Where you saw those dead oaks -- what kind of trees have they replanted with? More oaks? I like what you said about that willow ... "It has its own rivers and soil and landscape and colours. " p.s. What mysterious things you find when you look -- that skeleton is odd looking, yeah maybe a bird-part.

いいね!
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