A long hot summer

                   As I write this the first real rain is falling and it's enough to fill the water butts for the first time in many weeks. It has been just too hot to work in the wood even though there is always work needing doing. Its has been especially hard on the flora and fauna there and many of the trees have started to lose their leaves early: it is a way for them to conserve moisture by preventing evaporation from the leaves. For trees that are already suffering from the effects of old age or fungal attack the additional heat stress has the effect of accelerating their decline. Our main oak tree has been on the wain for many years, each Autumn it hosts impressive bracket fungus, a sign of the rot within. This Summer the fungus has multiplied and there is deep crack now running up the trunk. The tree is slowly dying, which is showing in the thinning canopy and t yellowing of the leaves. It is a favourite tree, right in the place where we spend most of our family time and where I turn my truck around. Soil compaction around its base must also play a part in its decline. There is a saying that oaks take a hundred years growing, then a hundred years living and a hundred dying.....so it will be with us for a few years yet and even then it will provide a great resource for many creatures, especially for woodpeckers.

                On the ground the first signs of Autumn are appearing. Even in the dry conditions the first fungi are pushing through the leaves and the chestnuts are filling up. Perhaps there will be a good crop of both. 

Signs of heat stress on our big Redwood tree

Dead trees are much valued by Great Spotted Woodpeckers

The first fungi appearing

These are a species of Brittle cap, often brightly coloured

Bracket fungi spreading on the old Oak, those on its right side are new this year

the thinning canopy and yellowing leaves

the new fissure in the main trunk, not a good omen.

Will it be a good year for chestnuts in spite of the drought ?