THE TALKING TREES - JULY UPDATE for TREE FOLLOWING 2014

I can adjust this photo to make the colours more true to life - less blue.
I tried it. I didn't like it.
I like this faded original better.

For all that I've encouraged you to follow a tree for a year when I set out to visit mine I almost always go with a heavy heart and the expectation of boredom. Why did I choose a pine? Pines don't 'do' anything The answer of course, is the same as the complaint - they don't 'do' anything. I wanted a challenge. But if I had to chose a challenge, why did that have to include the lowest branches being masses of feet above my head? I simply can't see what's up there.

I revisit the bark. I revisit the plants at its foot. I might find and insect in the road. I've done it all (yawn, yawn) - would there be anything new? How could there be.

What there was - was one of the most startling experiences I've had with any tree. And if I hadn't stood there wondering what to photograph, I would never have known . . . the very fact I had to stand there was what brought me something wonderful and new.

I'll save it for the end.

First though - I'm learning how frequently the grass is mown. The Chickweed (Stellaria media) which was there in March and April  has gone and a bramble has taken its place.

On the trunk - there's a yellow snail resting in a crack in the bark..

And here's the resin I can't stop being intrigued by. The sun is making a star on a globule.

And . . . and . . . when I get home and crop the picture I notice there's an odd white thing in the frame. I'ts probably about 4mm long. Anyone know what it is?

At the time though, I was so entranced by the globule I'd forgotten to take care of my feet - and stumbled over this cone.

Other cones I've found have been brown and closed. This one is green on the outside - and inside, if you look, the colour is a beautiful chestnut brown. A careful designer could have made this cone. I'd cover a sofa in its colours.

On it's back, where the cone was attached to the tree, you can see how the scales (scales? is this a dragon?) are arranged in whirls reminiscent of the snail on the other side of the tree.

But . . . but . . . something is happening. There's a strange and persistent clicking. I'd assumed a child was tapping something while walking down the road. I turn. There's no-one there. Maybe someone's playing with a clicker in a nearby garden. If so, it must be a specially interesting clicker because they won't stop. All the time they click and click and click. Then, all of a sudden, they click loudly in a burst. Clickclickclickclick . . . But it isn't a child. It isn't a clicker. It's the tree. I cross the road to where there are others like it. They are doing it too.

The only way I can record sound is to take a video. So here is our tree - not moving but 'talking'.

I imagine the cones are opening their scales to eject their seeds. You might want to turn up the sound to hear.

 Would you be interested in following a tree for a year? It's not too late to join. Click the emblem to find out how.

Click here for Tree Following posts written by other bloggers in July 2014.

All photos in this post - and the video - were taken on July 10th 2014.

Tweet

REDWOOD TREES IN THE NEW FOREST

Several times I've tried to photograph the tallest London Plane trees in Europe. Complete waste of time. I could show leaves. But all plane trees have leaves. I could show branches - but there's was no way I can give any idea of height. They are in a wood so you can't stand back. And even if you could - suppose there were a hill to stand on a bit distant and you photographed them poking above the other trees - still it wouldn't work. How tall are the trees around them?

This link gives you a chart of their height. 

 I don't know why it looks as if it's standing in ice or snow. It wasn't.
Blame it on the light.

Now, inadvertently, I've visited the tallest Redwood tree in the UK. If there hadn't been a notice to say so, I would never have known. Its trunk wasn't especially wide - not as wide as you might have expected. And like the plane trees, its height was obscured by tall trees nearby.

I wasn't especially impressed - except for its exceptionally strokeable bark.

Common Frog - Rana temporaria
June 22nd 2014

For, as you know, it's the small things in life and nature which usually catch my attention. Like this frog which was sitting still in a damp place beneath the tall-but-not-quite-so-tall trees across the road.

I found myself making an exception though for this tree - another Redwood.

(I'm being vague about the names of these trees - though I think they are Sequoia Wellingtonias. I wasn't paying attention. I was simply feeling their trunks and walking round them. I think you'd have done the same.)

This tree may not have been the tallest (though it was still very tall; for England) but the flare at the base of its trunk was massive - and beautiful.

Absurdly, here I am with a nature blog - and not minding that I don't know exactly what I've seen. And I took hardly any photographs. Sometimes (mostly if you are me) simply being in the presence of something - a tree, a frog, a leaf - is enough. And taking note of its parts instead of its impressive whole.

And the pictures imprinted in my brain are as good as any photos I might take. It's just that I can't share them as I can images from a camera.

* * *

If you'd like to see these trees for yourselves . . . and hunt for frogs . . . Here's the link to The Forestry Commission's Tall Trees Trail. (We saw a woodpecker walking up a trunk too.)

I'm Following a Tree
Are you?
The next link box
will open at 7:00am (UK Time)
on 7th June 2014.
If you'd like to know more
about Tree Following,
click the tree!

Tweet

P.S. The New Forest isn't exactly 'new'. It was developed for hunting in the late 11th century but it existed long before then. Here's the Wikipedia link.

Will you Help me Improve Loose and Leafy?

My stats count readers by country (UK, USA, China etc.) but I'd be interested to know something more precise - how many Loose and Leafy readers live in Dorset and the counties around. It would help me judge how much information about place I should give. Context is important for plants so I'd like to be sure to explain enough - but not so much I bore readers already familiar with the area. So . . . if you are a reader from the West Country - perhaps you could tick one of the boxes below? (They are a bit pale - you can find them above the labels - where it says 'REACTIONS'.) It's completely anonymous. The results are no more than you can see - a count of ticks per box. I'll leave the boxes there for a while. Please feel free to leave a tick for each post. (There's even a space for 'Elsewhere' so if you live 'elsewhere' you won't feel left out and get to tick a box too!)

OF RESIN AND CONES

I've been waiting for a pine cone to fall from the tree I'm following and at last one has. The first, no doubt, of many. Compared with others I've seen in previous years, it's not large. How large? I don't know. I didn't have a ruler - oh . . . except I had my foot.

Here you see them; fallen cone, fallen needles and a foot to measure them by. (I always knew my foot would come in handy one day!)

There are many yet to fall. If my blog goes dead. If suddenly there are posts no more - it's probably because I've been struck on the head by a cone. Be warned!

Meanwhile, the trunk still captivates me; the trunk, its bark and its oozings.

Here comes a drip.

Some drips form planes.

Some . . . I don't know how to describe this shape.

Some grow . . . toadstools?

I'm still not clear whether this is a real fungus or a resin shape. I'll keep looking.

At the foot of the tree - a bramble has sprung up. It won't last here long. The grass is often mown.

And thinking of mown . . . the wind was roaring away up there in its high branches. (They are all high!) I recorded the sound - and discovered something . . . 

For a while, the wind waved the branches and the noise was pleasant and loud but at ground level all was still. Then the noise from the branches died away and the camera picked up on the breeze which had sprung up at head level. Two winds. Hadn't expected that.

I'm Following a Tree
Click Here to Find Out More

If you too are following a tree - the link box for June is now open and won't close till 7pm (UK time) on the 14th.

Tweet

TREE FOLLOWING - FREDA IS FERTILE

Freda (for those of you who don't know) is the name I've given to the tree I'm following. I'm not in the habit of giving trees personal names but I don't know what this tree is. A pine - but what kind? It's very big. Very dilapidated. Older (I hope!) than me and in a public place. It would seem impertinent to call it 'mine'. So, for the moment 'Freda' it is.

I said big - too tall to get near the branches. I said old. Bits of it are dying. (Some have already been lopped away.) But, high up there, I can see another branch is on its way towards . . . will it sometime fall?

Some days, I think 'what a stupid tree to choose'. On others I enjoy the challenge. I am a detective. What is happening up there? This was caught in a spider's thread. I think (I think!) it's a male cone - a microstrobilus (also known as a 'pollen cone'). Compared with the more familiar female cones, from which the seeds will fall, it is tiny. The big, hard, cones which fall from this tree are four to six inches long; hard and heavy. This fragile little thing is barely half an inch. Yet from this the pollen will fall into the seed cone (female) and, if Freda is fertile, seeds will form. I'm saying this without much hope. In other years I've tipped seeds from the mature cones (a bit like sycamore wings only in ones instead of in conjoined pairs) and I've tried to grow new trees from them. Never has one germinated. Which means the title of this post might be all awry - wishful thinking and nothing more. How can we tell if she's fertile or not? Am I doing it wrong or would they never grow, even under someone else's care? Something else to find out! (Beware! This might not have fallen from Freda. It might have flown in from another tree; not even necessarily of the same kind. It's feathery light.)

So far, I haven't seen much animal life in the bark - but here's a snail!

And there must be spiders because their threads are everywhere. As well as male cones and dead woodlice (unpictured) they catch dead needles as they fall.

Most of the rest of the needles collect in the kerb - along with cherry blossom and litter. There were daisies too in the kerb and I'd planned to photograph them along with the needles - but when I came close I decided this Angle Shades moth was more photogenic. Of course this signaled the moment when cars and vans began to drive up and down this quiet street. I had to stand back - and hope the moth didn't fly away. It didn't. Nor did I get run over. Happy ending!

REMINDER!

The link box for Tree Following posts will open at 7am UK time tomorrow morning (7th May) and will stay open till 7pm on Wednesday 14th May.

Are you ready?

Tweet