Big Clear Up

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have been successful in obtaining a grant to carry out environmental improvements on our stretch of the River Aire. They have started some preparatory work today on the overflow section under Buck Mill Bridge. As well as cutting back some of the vegetation they have collected all this rubbish (click on the picture to get a better view). It is amazing what gets thrown into the river. In the next few weeks and months they will be continuing their work in clearing this section and making the area a better place for wildlife.

Seeds and Berries

We've been planning our seed collecting walk (NEXT SATURDAY, THE 11TH AT 2.00 - MEET AT THE CONTAINER, AINSBURY AVENUE), but having decided with great enthusiasm that we'd do the walk, we find that some seeds are completely absent this year.

I wrote that there weren't any sweet chestnuts this year, and now have to admit to being wrong. Recent winds have brought leaves and unripe fruit down from the sweet chestnuts, and with less leaf cover we can see some fruit up there in prickly bunches, but whether they'll ever ripen is doubtful.

Still, at least it's there - which is more than can be said for rowan and holly berries. We haven't discovered any. The berries above are in our garden, and the only others I've seen have been in gardens, so obviously they aren't exactly the same as the wild native rowans. Likewise the hollies.

And does this mean we'll have a very mild winter? I'm not convinced that the trees can plan in advance according to their own internal weather forecast. Especally as the garden varieties seem to have a different view of the future months!

However, the planned walk will gather a good selection of other seeds and berries, and we'll be handing out collecting bags and instructions and hoping that people will successfully grow a selection of good native trees for planting later when they're sturdy little miniature trees. There's a good demand for them and we'll be suggesting Forest of Bradford as a future home for our Buck Wood babies. CA

Looking up and down

After heavy rain Buck Wood is very dank, the ground underfoot coated with layers of leaves and mud. There are streams flowing down some of the paths where springs and ponds have overflowed, and it could all be dismal, except that the newly fallen leaves are bright shades of brown and gold, especially where beeches predominate. And the reflections in the puddles show that the sky is still sunny now and again.

But looking up into the tree tops demonstrates how the autumn leaf fall seems suddenly to have changed to bareness, at least in the case of these birches which are on the top of the ridge and less sheltered than most.

But all the rain gives me a chance to use a favourite word, splorroch, which Joseph Wright, Thackley's most famous son, defines in his Dictionary as 'the sound made by walking in wet or mud'. I think we'll be doing a lot of splorroching during the next few months!

CA

Bouncing acorns

The recent rain and winds have made the Wood appear decidedly autumnal. The leaves are falling in flurries, and the acorns are bouncing to the ground from every overladen oak (much to the delight of the dog, who thinks that food or toys are falling from the skies, and every one needs investigating).

But while the signs of the wood dying back and settling into winter are all around, there's still evidence of how resilient nature is, and that it can recover from the worst that age and bad weather combined can do to it.

This oak tree broke apart in gales two or three years ago, the top was sawn off to prevent further damage, and since then it seems to have flourished, albeit in a most un-oak-like shape! And the broken trunk lying nearby has fostered a succession of different fungi, including an impressive growth of Black bulgar, Bulgaria inquinans. Now it's almost covered by brambles, and this years fungal growths are too well-hidden under prickly branches to photograph.

CA