Follow Follow Follow?

As promised here is the beech tree blog :-)

I mentioned earlier that to the south of my village once stood a great beech wood.  In the 1970s some of it made way for a housing estate.  Then in the 1980s more trees were cut down for further housing estates.

I didn't move to the village until 2004 when most of the house-building to the south of the village had finished (although more housing could be in the pipeline but the villagers are adamant that no more building should take place to the south).... the north east area has been extensively developed removing all the marshland that beautiful birds once frequented...... all in the name of progress.  Well I suppose if we keep on increasing our population we continue to need more housing. 

Sorry.... I digress.

Back to the beech trees.  Well..... as you know, I am following a tree for a year... a Japanese Flowering Cherry ... in my garden.  See here for details.  But I thought I should follow one of the mighty beech trees in my village.  I knew exactly which one I wanted to follow..... I speak to 'him' almost every day.... and have done for almost 8 years.

When I first moved here there were two beech trees standing closely together (about 8 feet apart) but the other one, a copper-coloured beech, was taken down about 4 years ago due to disease.

Here you can see the present beech tree to the top left and the stump of the copper beech to the bottom right.

The reason I know I want to follow this particular beech tree is because I believe this will be the last year of its life!  And this will become clearer as I show you the pictures of this mighty tree.

I don't know how old this tree is and I suppose I should research it. 
But it has been the victim of vandalism.......

..... from humans.....

..... and nature.......

If we take a closer look at the scaring hole ...........



.... and closer still......

..... we can see what is doing the damage.  I know the photos aren't brilliant but if we look even closer.....

..... I think we can see woodworm activity going on.  It is all very sad.  But maybe the tree will survive this onslaught.  The tree produced hundreds and hundreds of beechnuts....... and some casings are still on the tree.......

This year's leaf buds have formed and are on all of the branches..........

..... so let's hope that this tree is a fighter.

Have a great weekend.  More blogging next week :-)

Blessings, Willow x