Alder forest! The species likes to get its feet wet, growing by rivers and lakes. Here, a patch of damp low-lying land by the Tarn on the common gives a rare opportunity for a whole stand of the trees: surprisingly handsome, given their usual appearance as riverside bushes.Black-tailed Skimmer resting near the Tarn. Several of them zoomed over the water, with an Emperor; a Great Crested Grebe fished; a fish jumped.Large Skipper under the BirchesA Birch, unusually carpeted in crusty orange lichen (not Xanthoria, I think) or perhaps a non-lichen fungusHandsome Polytrichum moss on forest floorA Robber Fly with its prey, on Bracken
Tree Pipit singing sweetly. Its perch has been well drilled by Woodpeckers.Wide views over heath, hill, and woodland as far as the eye can see: Puttenham Common from Hillbury Hill FortThe Tarn on Puttenham Common, a remarkably big body of water surrounded by beautiful Oak – Birch – Holly forestAn enormous coppice stool of Holly, a most surprising tree to find coppiced, beside the main forest track running north from the Tarn. It must be ancient to have grown to such a size. A fabulous big moss, I think AtrichumAnother gorgeous big moss, surely Polytrichum
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
