November and December Notes

by David Tidmarsh - 18:21 on 19 November 2012

 Nature Notes

Leaves are everywhere now with only a few still clinging onto the trees, it would be great to pile these up near to a quiet hedge to give welcome shelter to any hedgehogs that have escaped crossing the roads.
You can easily identify the sycamore leaves among the other leaf litter by the black spots that have been left by the fungus that have attacked these leaves.
One particularly colourful leaf that I think is really nice, is the Autumn Field Maple, these have dropped off in the last few days and are a bright yellow. It even brightens up the dark dull days, maples usually are one of the star performers in the Autumn.
The crisp crunch of the leaves underfoot will soon go as they get wetter and start to decay to produce leaf mould.
Long shadows that stretch the full length of the field could be seen last week as the Poplar trees that grow on the cricket field boundary were picked up by the low winter sun, it just goes to show how strong the low light can be at this time of the year, these shadows were stretching across to Wapping Bridge.
More coppicing of old Poplar trees will continue as soon as I find time, in the plantation at New Lambton. These will provide good habitat for insects as they rot down into the ground, the branches bundled together will give good roosting areas and will even provide nesting habitat in the spring.
There are some very interesting fungi growing on these poplar trees, if they were edible we could have quite a feast, but you need to very  knowledgeable to attempt any foraging of the fungi growing around the woods.
Moss growing upwards on the lower stems of the Ash trees give the impression that the trees have their leg warmers on, look in the New Lambton plantation to see lots of examples of this.
This time of the year is of course the best time to move trees and shrubs, we have quite a few Ash saplings to plant out before the spring and after hearing reports of the decline in Ash trees around the country due to the imported virus on the trees I think it is more important than ever to conserve and increase our stock of local provenance which have proved their capabilities to grow in the area. When I see how easy mother nature can produce thousands of ash seedlings growing in our location I can hardly believe that they have imported Ash stocks into this country with such devastating results.
Last year we heard about Horse chestnuts contracting some imported disease I wonder what will hit our native stocks next year?
Anyway enough of this doom and gloom, it will be Christmas soon, sorry I shouldn’t have mentioned Christmas, lets look forward to the return of the sunshine in the Spring.
All the very best till next year. Ken

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