Tag Archives: trees

Sunday Sunbeams in Sherwood Forest

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I went out this morning looking for sunbeams, and even managed to get a few pictures, though they weren’t as good as the ones I saw last year when I didn’t have the camera with me.

The header picture is taken with the Pop Art setting which peps up the colour a notch or two. The sunbeam picture below is taken on the normal setting and is, as you can see, much greyer.

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I then carried on a bit further and took pictures of bluebells and litter. I didn’t actually intend taking pictures of litter but I was concentrating on the bluebells so much that I didn’t notice the litter until later.

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It was, in other words, a mixed morning.

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Another Day Away

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We stayed in Skipton last night and spent the day doing some Family History photography.  The day was bright in patches, but by the middle of the afternoon, when we were at Clitheroe Castle, it was rather dark.

The trees in the main photo were an early find, while the sun was managing to break through.

The others are slightly less than sharp, but seemed too good not to use. Julia spotted the squirrel going through the bins as we left the castle.

Bin raiding squirrel at Clitheroe Castle.
Bin raiding squirrel at Clitheroe Castle.
Bin raiding squirrel at Clitheroe Castle.

There will be more on this trip later, but first I want to stick my feet up and have a cup of tea.

The Leaves of Clumber Park

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The woods have really pinged into life since the frost and we are finally seeing some good autumn colour. My camera, of course, is doing its best to take the colour back out. I really don’t know what goes through the minds of camera designers, but they really seem to hate colour.

I first noticed this when taking a sunset with my old camera. A deep red, cloud-flecked sky behind Sandal Castle became a pale pink sky with pale grey wisps.

Sunlit oak leaves at Clumber
The lake at Clumber Park
Holly Berries
Autumn Beech leaves – Clumber Park
Oak leaves at Clumber

In the old days of film you used to buy Kodak for restrained colour or Fuji if you wanted something brighter. These days, with my camera at least, you can get the same effect from selecting “Scene” mode. I selected the “Cuisine” option, which brightens all the colours. It’s meant for taking pictures of food but it seems to work for autumn leaves too. Some, like the oak leaves didn’t need help. With others I forgot to use the setting. It did help with the landscapes but even with this help the colours in the photographs are more restrained than they were in real life.

Autumn Beech leaves
Holly
Brambles leaves at Clumber
Leaves at Clumber Lakes
Walkers at Clumber

Julia had a Safeguarding Course at Worksop today so it seemed like a good time to visit Clumber Park. It’s the home of an 87 acre lake and the longest Lime Tree Avenue in Europe. It was planted in 1840 and is 2 miles long with 1,296 common limes.

Clumber Park
Clumber in Autumn
The Lime Avenue – Clumber
Clumber in Autumn

At the end of the lake is a shallow section with a number of tree stumps and drowned trees. These date from the 1980s when subsidence from coal workings dropped the level of the ground. The new low-lying areas filled up and the trees dies. A few still stand to provide perches for cormorants and gulls.

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Drowned tree at Clumber Park

I read a haiku today, by coincidence. I can’t remember it, but it was about how maple leaves are at their best just before they fall. I wish the same could be said for me.

In Japanese they have the word koyo – autumn foliage.

RIP 8,715 trees

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We’ve just had a letter from our electricity supplier telling us how we could have saved money by signing up to a fixed-price deal or paying by monthly direct debit. It’s very kind of them to go to the trouble of doing this, though there is, of course, a suspicion at the back of my mind, that the letter isn’t really for our benefit.

A thought crosses my mind at this point. If they send one letter a year to their 33 million customers (I take this figure from Eon’s Wikipedia entry) and if each letter costs 50p (for ease of calculation) that costs £16.5 million. Sounds like a lot of money. They could do a lot with that money.

But…

From 2006-10 their sponsorship of the FA Cup (including the Women’s and Youth Cups) cost them £40 million.  They spent money on other sports-related sponsorship too, but that’s the only one that has a figure attached on Wiki.

The question is, did this make them any money? I don’t know about you but “What sports do they sponsor?” isn’t top of my list when selecting an energy supplier.

Similarly, they spent around £28 million on supporting the Museum next to their corporate HQ over the years 1998 – 2014.

Again, it wouldn’t really influence me in my choice of supplier. I might feel good about indirectly supporting a museum, but it would come a long way after price and green credentials.

It may be that sponsorship pays its way. It may be that sponsorship is just a massive vanity project.

The only thing I do know for sure is that if they sent out one less letter per customer per year they could probably pay for all the sponsorship, and save 8,715 trees a year.

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Woodland – Rufford Park

(I calculated the tree usage from this website).

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Trees are Good for You

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The sun has just broken through the clouds, bringing a welcome brightness to a wet, grey day. I’m typing and watching antiques programmes on TV after a late lunch of home made pea and mint soup. Today has been productive and pleasant and all is right with the world. The only thing that could improve my mood is an invitation to stay at Blandings Castle.

So why am I wound up to the point of homicide?

Because yet again I’ve had to go to the phone to answer a call from an overseas call centre. I’m registered with the Telephone Preference Service but unfortunately this doesn’t stop the overseas calls and we are getting one or two of those every day. We notice them more that we are at home.

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Trees at Arnot Hill Park

As a general rule I try to be polite because the callers are only doing a job, but today I wasn’t in much of a mood for manners. I was forthright rather than rude, but I don’t suppose I improved their day. In fairness, they didn’t improve mine either.

As part of my on-going process of self-improvement I’m going to stop being irritable and start letting karma take its course. As I always told the kids, you shouldn’t let the actions of others dictate your behaviour.

From now on I’m going to stay polite and let karma sort things out. It’s just that I’d find it easier to do if I was allowed to pick karma up and hit people with it.

The trees are archive shots because if you want to be calm, trees are good for you.

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Sunset in Sherwood

More Trees of Sherwood Forest

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After preparing the last Sherwood post I realised I didn’t have a very good selection of trees. This was partly because I hadn’t taken enough pictures, partly because I needed to visit more trees and (to be honest) because I’ve mislaid some photos.

I can’t do much about the last point, apart from a lot of boring searching, so I short-circuited that by making another visit and taking more photos.

Sunset at Sherwood
Can you see the face?
Can you see it now?

It was an admin day today so we’d lost the best of the light by the time we started, but there was enough to get a good selection of photos. Many of them look like they are dead, and some are, but many of them will have leaves when spring comes, despite being hollow. Hollow trees are often quite vigorous as the material from the middle rots down and feeds the remaining parts of the tree.

Ancient oaks
Oak in Sherwood Forest
Ancient oak of Sherwood
Oak tree in Sherwood
A walk in the woods

Smaller holes are good too – providing nest holes for various birds and roosts for bats. The population of Great Spotted Woodpeckers has increased 400% since the late 60s due to a number of factors, including more available nest sites. Nest sites are important to hole dwelling birds.  In Sweden half of their Red Listed birds are hole-nesters who are declining due to a lack of tree holes. Meanwhile, Swifts, House Martins and Sparrows are all finding it difficult in the UK as people close holes in buildings.

Hollow ancient oak
Ancient Oaks
Ancient oaks
A path in the woods
Sundown in Sherwood
Major Oak

The Trees of Sherwood Forest

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When I say “The Trees of Sherwood Forest” I really mean the ancient oaks. At the moment when people quote a figure they seem happy with the figure 997 – 450 of which are living.  About 250 of the 450 are healthy and 200 are in various states of declining health.

They say an oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years in maturity and 300 years dying, so this isn’t necessarily a cause for concern, though in 2007 they did lose seven trees – including four in one particularly blustery night.

There is a plantation in Dorset that contains 260 saplings grown from acorns of the Major Oak, but it was only planted in 2003, so they are still 287 years from maturity. I know that you have to take a long view when dealing with trees, but planting for a time 300 years from now is hard to take in.

Oaks support more species than any other tree, being host to around 350 species of insect and 30 species of lichen. The insects are food for birds: acorns feed jays, badgers, deer and squirrels (and, traditionally, pigs) and the flowers and buds are the foodplants of the caterpillars of the purple hairstreak.

Even the dead trees provide habitat for insects, plus nesting and roosting sites for birds and bats.

Holding up the Major Oak
ncient Oaks of Sherwood
Ancient oak in Sherwood Forest
Strapping to hold an oak together

The most famous of the ancient oaks is the Major Oak, voted Britain’s Favourite Tree in 2002 and England’s Tree of the Year in 2014. It is something of a celebrity and will always be associated with Robin Hood. The story that he hid inside it is unlikely – at an estimated age of 800 – 1,000 years it was, at best, a young tree in Robin Hood’s time, and possibly just an acorn. Such are legends…

Here is a link to a site detailing some of the other famous oaks of Sherwood.