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Tag Archives: woodland

Wintergreens

17 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by theresagreen in Nature of Wales, North Wales

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Tags

bird behaviour, birds eating ivy berries, blackbird, hedera helix, ivy, ivy berries, January, Nuthatch, winter, wood pigeon, woodland

January arrived quietly this year, bringing with it a mix of winter weather. It’s been consistently pretty cold, with even the mildest days barely rising above 4° C, but we’ve had ethereally misty days, drizzly-rainy days, bright sunny frosty days and even some snow. In between, more than a few days have been dull, sunless and still, the kind of winter days that feel like time’s been suspended and the day somehow never really got started before it was over. But little by little the days are getting longer, and on my restricted Covid-lockdown-exercising-only-from-and-to home-route around my local woods, there are definite signs that spring is not so far away.

A wintergreen path carpeted with shed leaves

The shed leaves of the deciduous trees, mostly oaks, ash and sycamores lie in a thick carpet on the woodland floor and are still covering the less-trodden tracks. Their absence allows through the bright winter sunlight and also highlights the extent of the permanent greenery here; indeed, there’s so much of it you might feel you were in a tropical forest if it wasn’t so cold. There are several species of evergreens contributing to the winter verdure; dark brooding yews, tall twisted Scots pines and masses of shiny holly, all of which are native plants. Then there’s Holm oak (also known as Holly oak or Evergreen oak) and cherry laurel, both non-natives and classed as invasive. But most responsible for creating the jungley ambience and linking everything together, is just one species of plant; ivy. It is quite literally everywhere, covering the ground, clothing tree trunks and forming leafy frames to woodland views.

  • ivy climbing up a sessile oak tree
  • a framed view across the valley

How ivy affects trees

Although prolific amounts of ivy may look unkempt and alter the appearance of trees, there are some common misconceptions regarding the effect this climbing plant has on them. The first is that ivy kills trees: be assured it doesn’t, and neither is it parasitic. Strong, healthy trees are not adversely affected by ivy; its roots take no nourishment from or through a tree’s bark, and the tree’s leaves don’t allow enough light through for the ivy to grow too vigorously.

It is only when a tree is naturally weakened and begins to die back that ivy will reach into the thinner crown, so ivy doing particularly well in a tree might indicate a tree that is already struggling, but it will not have been the cause of the tree’s sickness. In this instance though, the ivy may make a tree more vulnerable to wind damage; the added bulk of the ivy increases its resistance during high winds and may make it more likely to be blown over, so hastening the tree’s demise.

About ivy

There are two subspecies of ivy that grow in these woods, both of which are native to Britain: these are the climbing Hedera helix ssp. helix and Hedera helix ssp. hibernica, which doesn’t climb, but spreads across the ground.

Specialised hairs on ivy stem

Ivy is an evergreen, woody climber which can grow to a height of 100ft (30m). The stems have many fibrous, clinging, adhesive-covered roots which help it to climb. Mature older plants develop thick woody stems that can allow them to become self-supporting.

The leaves are dark green and glossy with pale veins. The leaves on non-flowering young plants have 3-5 lobes and a pale underside. On mature plants leaves are oval or heart shaped without lobes, although leaf edges may sometimes be wavy.

Ivy is an essential part of the habitat, providing food and shelter for a diverse range of different organisms.

Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus

Being evergreen, ivy provides year-round dense cover for a wide variety of wildlife. During the winter it offers hibernation sites for many insects, which in turn attracts birds that come to forage for them. Butterfly species which survive the winter in their adult form often hibernate in ivy, including the lovely Brimstone, usually amongst the first species on the wing in the spring. Ivy is also the foodplant of the second, or summer generation of the caterpillars of the beautiful little Holly blue butterfly. In late July/August female Holly blues lay their eggs on swelling buds of ivy flowers, which caterpillars burrow into and eat from the inside. Once fully grown they leave the buds and pupate on the underside of Ivy stems where they will overwinter and emerge as an adult butterfly in March/April the following year.

In some instances very dense ivy may provide winter hibernation sites for bats.

Nuthatch working its way up through ivy

One of my favourite woodland birds is the handsome Nuthatch. Although they are colourful, these beautiful birds can be hard to spot when they are foraging around tree trunks and branches, but when they choose to be heard, particularly when singing or crying out in alarm, they have a very loud voice. On a recent walk I traced the whistling sound one was making to an ivy-clad tree a few metres away. Believing itself to be well-concealed I was able to watch it carry an acorn from somewhere around the bottom of the trunk right up to near the top. I momentarily lost sight of it several times as it wove in and out of the ivy, travelling in an erratic kind of spiral up the main trunk, but I managed to follow it disjointedly until it got so high it was making my neck ache to watch it. I couldn’t see if it still had the acorn when it got to the top, it’s quite likely it may have cached it for later consumption somewhere along the way and was foraging for hibernating grubs or caterpillars to eat now.

Perhaps the greatest gifts that ivy gives to wildlife are firstly that it flowers late in the summer or early autumn, providing a bounty of late nectar to a wide range of insects from hoverflies to bees to butterflies. Then following the flowers come generous crops of berries, some of which begin to ripen in the early winter and others slightly later, providing a bountiful progression of nutritious food, lasting through to the spring, which feeds a great many birds, both residents and winter migrants.

Male blackbird feasting on ivy berries

The amount of ivy and the resultant bounty of berries it produces are a great draw to two species of birds in particular, Blackbirds and Wood Pigeons. Winter walks are practically guaranteed to be accompanied by a soundtrack of rustlings, flappings and often crashings as birds of both species fly from one ivy vine to another. From the blackbirds there are frequent alarm calls too; there’s a lot of competition for the best berries and they’re worth squabbling over. Neither bird is really purpose-built for the acrobatics required to reach the berries dangling temptingly out of range, but that doesn’t stop them trying. Blackbirds often launch themselves upwards to grab a dangling berry, a rather ungainly method, but who cares if it works?

Wood Pigeons are more ponderous and considered in their approach, eying up the best-looking berries before stepping cautiously towards them, craning their chicken-like necks forward as far as they can and making a grab for them, sometimes losing their balance and flapping madly to restore it.

Ivy berries are loved by other species of birds too, including the song thrush, mistle thrush, redwing, blackbird and blackcap. Although the berries appear in October-November, birds don’t tend to start eating them until later into the winter, shorter-lived berries such as rowan and hawthorn are eaten first, leaving the longer-lasting ivy berries until last. The berries are a great source of protein and, according to the RSPB, gram for gram contain nearly as many calories as a Mars bar! No wonder our local Wood pigeons are looking so plump!

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An Appreciation of Trees

17 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by theresagreen in Colwyn Bay, Nature of Wales, North Wales, woodland walks

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

ancient woodland, autumn, fungi, native trees of Wales, pwllycrochan woods, wanders, woodland

The woodland of Pwllycrochan makes up much of the treescape that forms the beautiful and seasonally changing backdrop to the town of Colwyn Bay. Deceptively small in area, this woodland is long and narrow, surrounded and divided by roads into three islands that together occupy just 21 hectares of land. But what this remnant of ancient woodland lacks in ground area is made up for by the height and grandeur of the beautiful old trees that occupy it. Aged Oaks, Ash and Beech trees soar majestically into the sky, some so tall it’s almost impossible to see their crowns without craning back your neck as far as you can.

This has become one of my favourite places for a wander at any time of the year, but I think Autumn is the perfect time to appreciate the true owners of this woodland: the amazing trees that grow there.

Much of the original woodland that was once the formal parkland of the Pwllycrochan Estate is gone, but a good number of its beautiful old trees still stand, lending grandeur to the roadsides of this west end of Colwyn Bay. A formally clipped yew hedge marks the boundary between the school playing field and Pwllycrochan Avenue and just behind stands a glorious spreading Sweet Chestnut tree. The leaves remaining on the tree are slowly turning colour. Many have already fallen, no doubt  assisted by recent high winds and heavy rain and the pavement beneath is covered with russet-coloured leaves, prickly seed-cases and scattered nuts.Rounding the bend a little further up the sloping road, a sight that I remember took me by surprise the first time I saw it: a tree has been left to grow on a small island in the middle of the road. This is an old Strawberry tree, an exotic survivor from the past glory days of the aforementioned Estate.

Inside the woods it was peaceful and still. For a brief moment nothing moved. Not a breath of air stirred the leaves. There were no road sounds, no trampling chatting people or dogs, no bird sounds, not even a scurrying squirrel. Perfect peace.

The moment was fleeting, soon broken by a lady walking with her dog, but much appreciated. I wandered a bit further along the path, looking out for fungi. I wondered whether it was a bit late in the season for finding anything, but this has been a good place for them in the past and inspired by our recent foray I was hopeful. Checking a woodpile at the side of the path I found some bracket fungi, some pieces had grown quite large and gone woody. It was faded too, but the largest piece was a pretty scallop shape and there was some darker banding still visible, so it may be Turkey tail, but does it grow that big?

Oak

The ancient trees stand  tall and straight like sentinels on guard. Each stands alone,  reaching the high canopy without need to bend or twist to avoid touching another. Most have lost, or at some time in the past, had their lower branches removed.

As a managed wood historically, that may be for  one of several reasons. Timber was, and is a valuable commodity. As building material for houses or ships and boats, long lengths of straight wood are desirable, so lower branches may be deliberately removed, particularly from Oak trees, for that reason. The woodland would have been managed for game too, birds such as pheasants would have been introduced and shrubs planted between the trees to give them cover, again requiring the removal of low branches to allow sunlight to reach them.

If I hadn’t seen a scattering of small cones on the ground I may have missed the Scots Pine tree they had fallen from, despite the fact that its trunk was almost in front of my eyes. It towered so high into the sky I had to crank my neck back almost painfully to see its few remaining branches way up in the canopy. I find it incredible to think this giant had grown from a tiny seed once encased within a tiny cone such as this.

Scots Pine

There’s something quite magical about a woodland stream and this wood has two that flow down through deep dingles. The sound of this one was clearly audible some distance away; its sound would have been amplified by the rocky walls either side of it, but recent heavy rains have given it power and volume and it tumbled and fell rapidly down the rocky cliff quite dramatically.

Heading towards the pool that gives the woodland its name, the track passes by this tall elegant Oak tree, elevated further by the raised bank it grows from. It is holding firm despite the soil around its roots having been much eroded. It’s mostly Sessile Oaks that grow here, but the only ways I know to tell them apart from the English Oak is that the Sessile’s acorns are stalkless and the leaves have longer stalks. The leafy parts of this tree were way too high to tell and I think by now squirrels and Jays would have made off with any acorns there may have been.

On the shaded path below the tree, at the bottom of the bank, a layer of coppery dry leaves merges with bright green moss.

I stood on the bridge crossing the narrow exit end of the pool as I always do, trying to imagine how it may once have been. Pwll is the Welsh word for pool and crochan translates as cauldron. It is said that once the stream flowing into the pool was once much more powerful, causing the water in it to bubble and froth as it would in a boiling pot. I’m ever hopeful that one day the water might at least look a little more animated, especially after a period of heavy rain. But we’ve had that lately and the pool is well-filled, so I imagine changes or diversions of the stream along its course are the reason for the reduction in its force, so it’s unlikely it will.

 

Retracing my steps I spotted movement on a tree trunk some distance ahead. Although half-hidden by the vegetation in front of me, the squirrel that was running vertically down from a great height must have spotted me in the same moment and had frozen still, an acorn wedged firmly between its teeth.

There are some beautiful ferns here, whose fronds gracefully arch out over the paths. This one has ripening sori (seeds) on the back of its fronds and from their shape I believe this is a Scaly Male Fern.

Shallow steps wind their way up to a path on higher ground.

From that higher path there is a view looking down onto the pool showing where the water flows on under the bridge. Some of the water exits naturally as a stream, but some is diverted via pipes from which water pours rather inelegantly.

From a coppery sea of dry leaves rose a small bright green island of moss. Close up this particular moss always makes me think of miniature pine trees. Moss identification is not a strong point of mine, but I think this is a Haircap species.

This trail continues upwards till it meets the road. A magnificent Ash tree stands at the edge of the path here. Each time I see an Ash, especially one such as this, I can’t help but think what a tragedy it would be if it were to be targeted by the dreaded Ash die-back disease. Fingers crossed, but at this time it looks strong and healthy

and as ash are often amongst the last to put out their leaves in the Spring, its leaves are still mostly green.

Not wanting to leave the wood here I turned around to walk back downhill. A fly basked in sunlight on a fern frond. Just a Housefly, but I was oddly pleased to see it, especially on a chilly day. Is it just me, or does anyone else think there have been less of them around this year?Bluebottles and Greenbottles have been quite numerous, and I’ve seen the smaller Lesser Houseflies, but not the bigger ones that usually annoyingly invade the house.

Almost hidden behind a larger tree, I would have missed this Rowan if its yellow leaves and scarlet berries hadn’t caught my eye. I wondered if it was deliberately planted or was a gift from a passing bird.

There are a few small Christmas-tree shaped pines in odd places throughout the wood too. This one, very close to the base of another tree surely wasn’t planted there intentionally. I wonder if it’s sprung from a Scots Pine cone buried by a squirrel.

By the side of the path a number of wasps were flying in and out of a space in a pile of Birch logs. Focussing on the wasps I didn’t notice the colony of rounded charred-looking fungi they were flying past until I looked at my photographs. This is one I recognise as King Alfred’s Cakes, memorably named for the incident which is surely one piece of history many of us, including the person that named the fungus, remember from school history lessons. In case not, legend has it that King Alfred the Great (849-899), whilst King of Wessex, sought refuge from Vikings (886) in the cottage of a peasant woman. In return for her hospitality, she charged him with looking after her cakes (small loaves of bread) that were baking on the stove. He supposedly fell asleep, or maybe became distracted worrying about his Kingdom, and let them burn. Unaware of who he was, she apparently gave him a good telling-off. The fungus then is named after those burnt cakes. Tenuous, but memorable.

191027-CWBPWLL- (53)-Wasps heading for nest
191027-CWBPWLL- (54)-King Arthur's Cakes

On the theme of burning, further on is another woodpile, fortunately in a clearing, which someone had clearly set fire to at some point, leaving many of the logs charred black.

Despite the damage to some of the logs I found some interesting fungi here including a nice fresh collection of Turkey tail, or Many-Zoned Polypore as it is also known

Strangely beautiful, I found Candlesnuff fungus growing through feathery green moss.

Venturing beyond the log pile along a track that comes to a sudden end – a rather sinister scene came into view: a tree that has been decapitated, its trunk left standing tall. Clearly rotting and bark peeling away, the trunk is blackened by a sooty ooze and is pierced with thousands of tiny holes. Large brackets of woody fungi project from the trunk; they too are blackened.

191027-CWBPWLL- (82)-blackened bracket fungus
191027-CWBPWLL- (81)-blackened bracket fungus

On a fallen log, looking like a bunch of small deflated balloons, I found a group of spent Stump Puffballs and nearby I found a few more, slightly fresher. Lycoperdon pyriforme to give it its scientific name is the only puffball species we have in Europe that regularly grows on wood.

Stump Puffball - Lycoperdon pyriforme
Stump Puffball – Lycoperdon pyriforme
191027-CWBPWLL- (86)-round fungus with stem

Next to the fallen log a mushroom that looked and smelt like a Field Mushroom. Perhaps that’s what is was, but there’s no way I was going to take it home to try it.

191027-CWBPWLL- (183)
191027-CWBPWLL- (182)

Growing vertically from a split in a log I spotted this odd group of white fungi that to me look a lot like teeth, which I found both interesting and quite amusing: it doesn’t take much. I don’t know what it is, maybe a Coral or a Stagshorn species?

Nearby is one of the few large Horse Chestnut trees found here. I was fascinated by the patterning of its bark.

From the clearing the leaf-strewn trail is sloping and for a while the woodland has a different feel to it. It’s more open, there are noticeably less large trees and more undergrowth and ivy.

 

An tent-like arrangement of thin branches propped against a tree brought back memories of ‘camps’ we used to make in the woods around our home when we kids. We built similar tent frameworks, but then covered them with hessian sacks and camouflaged them with dry leaves and twigs, leaving an entrance space so we could get in and out. I can almost recall the earthy smell of damp wood and sacks as I think about it.

Hairy Curtain Crust – Stereum hirsutum

 

Growing on a branch near the edge of the path was more pretty bracket fungus. It looked similar to Turkey tail, but was more yellow-ochre-brown in colour and its upper surfaces were definitely hairy. Looking it up I’m fairly sure it is Hairy Curtain Crust, aka False Turkey-tail.

 

 

Sweet Chestnut

A tall Sweet Chestnut tree, its leaves turning yellow

 

I wandered off the path towards a grove of huge Beech trees. At least one of the trees was multi-trunked and all were mightily  tall.

A shafts of sunlight had cast the shadow of the leafy tip of a branch onto one of the almost-smooth trunks

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaf shadows on Beech bark

and highlighted patches of the carpet of leaves beneath the trees turning them to burnished copper.

You are on high ground here and through the trees there is a view over the edge of Colwyn Bay town and out over the Bay itself to the wind turbines.

The path begins to slope down; the ground falls steeply away on one side and is lined by a ferny bank on the other. I stopped here for a few minutes to watch a foraging party of Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed Tits, a few of the latter had come down into the Holly tree in the photograph and stayed within in it for a good few minutes. Other than Wood Pigeons, these were the only birds I saw while I was here.

The Holly had a good crop of berries, which you may interpret to be a warning of a harsh winter to come, or an indication of a good Spring past with rain and sunshine that brought forth plenty of flowers. Maybe both, we’ll soon see.

Enormous ferns arching of the path lend a lush, almost jungly feel to this last part of the path.

This Trail through the woodland comes to an abrupt end and brings you out onto the Old Highway, a short distance down from the entrance to the woods. Another path, raised above road level and parallel to the road takes you back there along the woodland edge, so you don’t have to walk on the road itself. The vegetation along the path is quite varied and I found an eclectic collection of plants still in bloom or bearing fruit. Flowers surprisingly included those at the tip of a very late Foxglove, Herb Robert and a Hogweed. I spotted Wild Raspberries still ripening, a few Blackberries and more Holly berries.

191027-CWBPWLL- (143)
191027-CWBPWLL- (136)
191027-CWBPWLL- (144)
191027-CWBPWLL- (145s)-holly with berries

I’d collected a fair few items of rubbish along my walk and reaching in beneath a bramble to pick up a drinks can I was rewarded with my best fungus specimen of the day; although I don’t yet know its identity.

191027-CWBPWLL- (191)
191027-CWBPWLL- (190)

Then I caught sight of this old sign, now high up above eye level, nailed to the trunk of a large Sycamore tree. The Districts of Colwyn and Aberconwy merged to form Conwy Borough Council in 1996, so it’s at least that old, I would guess at quite a bit older again.

Ending as I began, a length of this path too is strewn with leaves and seed cases from a Sweet Chestnut tree.

191027-CWBPWLL- (154)
191027-CWBPWLL- (153)

More details about Pwllycrochan, including location here.

 

 

 

 

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