30 DAYS WILD : DAY 17 - GRASS AND BARK

17th June 2020. I'll have to go back to find out what kind of tree this is!

I went out briefly this morning, intending to take photos of 'coronovirus plants' - plants which would not, in the usual way of things, have been left in place but would have been swept up, mown down, taken away. This photo of grass in flower was to illustrate what happens when the grass isn't cut. There were red poppies too in the rising-high lawn beside an electricity sub-station. Poppies and other coronovirus plants can last till another day for although I was struck by the beauty of the grass flower, when I viewed the picture on screen I was equally struck by the bark of the tree behind it. . . . Which in turn reminded me of the bark on silver birches that I'd come across yesterday.

Silver birches can look elegant when their bark shines but they can look pretty tatty as well. Only recently have I come across silver birches which I would describe as 'characterful'; their trunks and limbs describing interesting shapes, 

their bark beautiful in a variety of colours.

Which is why my purpose for today's post wandered around a bit. 

30 DAYS WILD
Today's Random Act of
Wildness is to
place grass and bark on
the virtual
nature table.

So today . . . on my virtual nature table . . . I place grass and bark.

Tweet

TREE FOLLOWING FOR FEBRUARY - ALDER IN HALIFAX

I expect I will one day turn up to see 'my' tree and report on its monthly progress when the weather is sunny and bright for there are sunny and bright moments in the days. Many of them. But they don't necessarily coincide with when I am able to march to town with camera at the ready. But apart from missing the clarity of detail offered by a sunny morning I don't mind. This is winter.

And it's winter that's giving 'our' tree an opportunity to stand out. In summer these three trees merged into a green blob and the alder was invisible. The brown of its bark is dull and its trunk was permanently in shade. Overwhelmed by the brightness of the silver birches which flank it, their white bark flinging light in all directions, and their lighter branches and droopier leaves creating an elegant haze, it simply vanished. Completely unremarkable. But at the moment, in February, it's stolidness stands out against the hill in the background and the horizontal nature of its branches give it the feel of a pine that's dropped its needles. It's a small tree. At the moment though, with nothing much happening on either side, it looks bigger than it is.

Moving in . . . there are patches of lichen.

Some little flecks brighter than others. This is about four millimetres at its widest point but its lone splash of tiny colour immediately catches the eye and is of enormous significance in that it makes us look at the bark.

You won't like this. I think. No-body likes litter. Except sometimes I sort of do. Sometimes it's interesting. Like this abandoned Lucozade bottle which does for a manky patch of icy grass much as the little fleck of yellow lichen does for 'our' tree.

But the whacking great bit of plastic that has been in this tree right from when I first met it has annoyed me. It's been pretty ugly and I've wished it wasn't there. But now it's beginning to disintegrate and becoming ribbony  it's becoming slightly festive. At least, in this light.

And it's this light which is fading.

(I'll spare you a picture of the fairy lights.)

* * *

I'm Following a TreeAre You?

To see this tree over the last few months.

2017

AUGUST

NOVEMBER

2018

DECEMBER (One picture of inside a Street Plant Post.)

JANUARY

Tweet