In the autumn I went to Hatfield Forest
I came home with these images:
Reflections on the water
Drifts of dead wood anchored on lake edges, giving the scene an otherworldly look
Amazing fungus
Beetles, some common others never seen before.
Dragonflies and insects
Trees of all sizes, shades and shapes
Clean air
Gentle cows and soft-eyed, fluffy-coated calves
Ducks and geese, swimming, flying, walking or just resting by the lakes.
Black swans with red beaks and ruffled black back
Coots and moorhens
Endless clouds of thistledown floating past loosened by flocks of goldfinches sitting atop drifts of those seedheads.
Endless variety of birdsong.
Thrushes, magpies, blackbirds, jays, robins, warblers, and chaffinches were but a few of our sightings.
Yellow meadow ants.
Pastures rich in anthills, food for green woodpeckers.
More green woodpeckers than I have ever seen before in any one area.
The combination of water, meadow and ancient forest makes this a very special place for nature.
The magical trunks of some trees, vast and ageless with gnarled and twisted limbs reaching forth.
Giant redwoods, or were they pines? – telegraph pole tall and leaning drunkenly toward each other.
In the groves, sloes, elderberries, blackberries.
Hum of insects, buzz of bees and always the song of birds.
Calm and stillness that creeps up on you, filling your soul with peace and tranquility, and giving one such a sense of well-being.
These were the memories and thoughts that followed me home and I asked myself, what will happen to this wonderful place of water, grass and trees? This remarkable medieval forest – the oldest and only one surviving in Britain, when even more planes roar overhead and pollution slowly kills the life therein – where will the people go then? I woke in the night and thought I heard the distant trees calling to me, “Save us please”.
Who will help them?
Will you?
PS… and I haven’t even mentioned the myriad wild flowers, wonderful grasses, butterflies or moths.
