
This week's field trip was lead by Richard Mabey -- fellow tree lover. After reading the first few chapters of Beechcomings and the way he talks about trees, I wanted to hug him. He gets trees. He writes beautifully about them and his experience with them. He tells some great stories, too. Like the one about the horizontal forest down in Kent(?). A developer wanted to do what developers do to a wooded lot and some people were trying to stop him, so before they could, he went at night with a bulldozer and bulldozed the trees down. A court case was brought that decided as long as the trees were still alive, it didn't matter what direction they took and so it was still a forest and the developer could not develop the land.

One of the first trees he pointed out was a cherry tree. It's bark has markings like a tiger. Some of the older ones were falling apart. He mentioned they live to be about 100 years old.
He talked about Arger Fen as an important place because it's in the process of becoming a wildwood. It is a formerly managed woodland that is being (mostly) left to do its thing. He talked about new practices in forest management in the UK. The hurricane of 1987 changed a lot of thinking on forest management. It blew a lot of trees down and the forest managers responded by planting new ones, but they discovered that where the trees replanted themselves, they actually did much better than the places where saplings had been planted. There's a part of Arger Fen that's managed in this way. You go

In the distance, stood the tall silver birches with their purple tops. Buzzards flew by the pylons. I saw a small bird hover and dive in hunt. The forest floor was looking rather green. The first shoots of bluebells were sprouting up all over. Saw some more mature trees, some deer, willows, crossed a little stream, went past a forest of conifers and then down the road, past a river that ran over the road, past some snow drops (lovely!), and to a picnic table for lunch. It was cold. My

Woooow, a meadow of saplings!!! Do they sway when they talk? Mabey?
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