Deer at Whiteshill

It was raining hard this morning so I drove Helena to work and on the way home I went to get a free coffee at Waitrose and a little shopping.  But by the time I had finished my email chores and tidied up the kitchen the sun began to shine.  I decided to ring John W. to see if he wanted to go for a walk with his dog to find some original English beech trees which he had told me about.  Luckily he was in and pleased to do so.

I picked him and his dog up and we rove up to the top of Whiteshill and then along the ridge of the Cotswold escarpment to Haresfield Beacon, which is an area of woodland and traditional limestone grassland maintained by the National Trust.  We walked over the edge of the steep scarp slope and descended into the mixed beech and ash woods which line the hillside.  They must once have been managed woodlands  but now they are left to their own devices and as a result there are many rare species.  John is a keen botanist so having him as a companion introduced me to lots of the small plants nestling on the woodland floor.  John seemed to spot special plants whose Latin names he knew and  especially some rare mosses growing on the rotting wood from fallen trees, of which there were many.

But the objective of our walk was to see the beech trees which are also rare as they are the original types of beech which have existed for millennia.  They grow with much wider girth than the common beech which was introduced to Britain to serve as a timber crop, because of its tendency to grow tall and produce straight trunks. These older trees are found here on the outcrop of Oolite limestone and John showed me how the exposed and bare cliff faces have been colonised by these beeches.

I tried to photograph them, but because they are huge trees and the slopes rather precarious it was difficult to find suitable positions to stand.  I didn't want to hold John up so I took a few snaps and decided I will return for the specific task of recording these wonderful trees.

After taking John home and having a cup of tea sitting in their garden, I drove back along their small single track lane.  As I climbed up the hillside towards the local churchI saw two deer in the field behind the Cotswold stone walls.  I pulled into a field entrance to park and quietly got out with my camera without disturbing the deer and filmed them from a distance.  After a couple of minutes they moved from the middle of the field to start munching the hedge, so I decide to drive on with the hope that I could get closer to them.  My plan worked and I got out of the car, and moved around to a position to see them again.  They were looking at me from the hedge and I managed this single shot before the bounded off across the field.  It was good to be able to look them in the eye.

I have added a couple of other pictures.  The first shows one of the beech trees we found.  The second is of the sky looking out over the beech wood towards the Forest of Dean, as we walked away.  It includes cowslips in the foreground, a blurred buzzard and a paraglider in the distance.