Chestnuts and birches

Prepare for a series of posts about a single walk in Harlestone Firs. It was meant to be a ypga or a running day but I decided to walk and take my camera. As I have no friendly garden critters and don't run with the camera any more, my photo library tends to get used up fairly swiftly.

There are many sweet chestnuts in the woodland. Many that have been planted maybe thirty or forty years ago, but also some lovely old ones. This was a coppiced stool with seven stems - or more - around a hollowed central area.

It was like being in a cage and you had to squeeze to get in.

Sweet chestnuts are interesting as they seem, more even than other trees, eager to swirl and spiral and make strange shapes - though this many stemmed one, all the stems were straight... maybe that's to be expected as they were racing each other for the light.

There were also very, very many nuts. I should have collected some, but I didn't.

Usually, I don't see birches doing the twisty-twiney thing, but this one was! It was coiled around a sweet chestnut. The birch was younger, or the chestnut would have done the coiling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZwVFrzp0d0

And, I heard a raven. It's been a while since I have heard one, so that pleased me greatly.