Woodland Wellbeing – 1.v.24
It was Mayday and the warmest day of the year so far, in my neck of the woods at least. On this occasion, the woods were a classic Atlantic oak woodland that cloaks a west-facing slope above the river Cree. Hence its name: the Wood of Cree! An RSPB reserve, it is famed for a suite of migrant songbirds that favour this habitat. I headed up the track from the main car-park and found myself among the trees in magical afternoon light. Swathes of bluebells were in flower, although not quite at their peak. Clumps of Stitchwort, Wood Anemone and Lesser Celandine added splashes of white and yellow. A verdant shag-pile of moss carpeted much of the ground, turning stumps, boulders, and fallen logs into amorphous hummocks. It takes plenty of rain to support such fecundity but this day was dry and sunny. The vivid green of freshly unfurled leaves highlighted the understorey of hazel and hawthorn with deeper pools of evergreen where thickets of holly grew. Above, the oaks were still bare, risi...