Blogger: Aggie Rothon, Communications Officer
Do you remember the Great Storms of ’87? I don’t. I slept through them, but I do remember sitting astride a huge sweet chestnut tree the following day. It had crashed to the ground overnight, leaving a huge ragged hole where it had once stood, ropes of tender root sprouting from the tree’s base like springs from an old, baggy mattress. The tree was so tall that it kept us in fire wood for months. I remember it’s uppermost branches bent against the fence at the far end of the garden, like an animal far too big for it’s cage.
I sometimes wish we had left it where it had fallen rather than tidying it away. Old wood takes on a second life. I was reminded of that as I walked the woods at RSPB Minsmere the other day. A thin path winds it’s way upwards as you walk out towards the heath and the sharp slope to your left is softened by swathes of fallen leaves. The smooth sculptural forms of tree limbs long fallen lie below you. They’re like roman heroes on their day-beds or the sea-carved remains of ancient ships. They look historical and, in fact, are historical. They leave me wondering what they’re former selves were and what kind of lives they led. And if their branches were filled with tits and finches and the scurrying of treecreepers and nuthatches before, they are laden with life now. Woodpeckers and owls excavate their age softened reaches, spiders and oily-backed beetles and armoured bugs parade their wooden plains and hide in their damp undersides.
Our storm-damaged sweet chestnut left a gap in the sky-line as I remember - it was one of a group of massive, stately trees in the wood behind the house. I used to dream of sitting up high riding the thinnest and whippiest of it’s branches as they sprang and coiled against the wind. I used to wonder what it would be like to live up there and become part of the comings and goings of a treetop existence.
The Canopy Hide at Minsmere is like a treehouse for birdwatchers. I sat up there later, amongst the bright green of the leaves and listened to a cuckoo calling beside me. The air seemed fresher, less earthy and I felt lifted above the hubbub of belonging to the world ‘out there’. In my dreams I live in a treehouse or on a boat hidden amongst a reedbed. With this a distant possibility, it would seem that a trip to RSPB Minsmere is the closest I’ll get to my ideal.
You can find out more about RSPB Minsmere nature reserve at www.rspb.org.uk/reserves. Join us for a Dawn Chorus walk and breakfast between the 7 and 21 May and hear the woodland come alive with birdsong.
Article in the Eastern Daily Press on 15th May 2011