Ecology

A Walk in the Woods

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It’s a misty morning in Mid-Wales, the air is still and the leaves are silent and the weather has been unusually dry so even the streams are muted.

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There is a distant sound of dogs beating distant woodland for foxes — there are no shots but the sheep are wary and cluster in the gully on the opposite side of the valley.

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See how this landscape rises all around you carrying the sheep and cows into the tops of the trees.

Trannon Oak Woods

At the edges of the wood where the tree canopy is less and bracken grows the first tentative frosts are turning the woodland floor amber and, as the giant branched fronds die back, the undergrowth of shamrocks, covered since May, bask anew in the pale daylight.

Shamrocks

This is the season for fruiting fungi.

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Oak Woodland fungi

Soon the weather will change and a heavy frost will let loose the seasonal showers of  leaves that fall like snow and drift and swirl in the spicy air. For the time being they hang on.

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