tree 16

A first today.  As I walk back down the hill to the carpark, I greet a couple of elderly labradors (and eventually) their elderly owners, making their way up.  OK - this is not unusual - being a doggy person I always talk to dogs.  

What is different this time, however, is that the owners talk back; “Got any good photos?”  the camera hanging round my neck being a giveaway.  I explain about my monthly tree project and they take a real interest.  They ask which one it is and I’m able to show them on the rear screen; “ah the wonders of modern technology”.  

They know the tree, but like me, can’t identify it.  I had thought, until today, that it was a Beech.  But on the way up I passed a Beech that is just beginning to fruit and realise that  the fruits on my tree are not quite the same.  So I blip a leaf (see extra) and on the website for the Woodland Trust, identify it as a Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus); “easily confused with beech.”  Too right.

As the dogs and owners take their leave, one (owner) shouts back “you should write a book about it.”  I pause and wonder whether or not to mention Blip - Nah.  That’s a  conversation for another day.