Coltsfoot

These leaves are all that remains of our patch of coltsfoot, under a young oak tree near post 7 at the viewpoint.  

They will disappear before the flowers appear briefly in March like pale dandelions.  So briefly that I usually miss them - this photo was taken in Woodchester Park.  

To be followed by fluffy seed heads in May - here again rather elusive  

but I caught these in Perthshire.

Check now for those tattered leaves under the oak tree, so you know where to look for the flowers in March.

Sheiling School Work

This is part of Filnore Woods called the Paddock.  Many years ago it was a grassy paddock and Fred Day, who was Mrs Violet Mundy's groom, used to give children riding lessons here.  

Nowadays it is full of hazel and blackthorn, but students and staff from the Sheiling School have been working on it for a year or so, coppicing the hazel, building fences along the top of the hedgebank and creating a very robust set of steps.   

The woven hazel fencing is not to keep people out but to stop them eroding the historic hedgebank by climbing over it.

The Sheiling School team have now started reinforcing the muddy path from post 13 near the Paddock to the row of beeches at post 14.

Many thanks to all students and staff.

Berries

Berries are an important  food source for many of our garden birds during the winter, especially when the ground is too frozen to hunt for worms, and insects are scarce.  

Mistle thrushes, blackbirds, robins, redwings, hawfinches and fieldfares find most of their winter food from berries.  Redwings feed in flocks, while others may try to keep the berry-laden prize for themselves.

Redwing - note the two conspicuous eye-stripes, one above and one below the eye

Fieldfares are especially fierce - towards other birds, that is.  They are rather shy of humans.

 Fieldfare - rather larger and greyer than the redwing and no chestnut red patch under the wing

Thrushes and waxwings prefer berries with smaller seeds such as rowan, whereas finches opt for larger berries like hawthorn, blackthorn, cherry and wild plum.

Silver Maple

If you walk up the path through the old Northavon Council tree nursery (we call it the Old Plantation on the map in the leaflet) you can't fail to notice this tree, leaning at 45 degrees.
It is a silver maple, so called because the little white hairs on the underside of the leaves twinkle in the sunlight in summer.

The white arrows on the silver maple and on the other tree tell you to turn here.

The plane tree behind it is numbered 16 on our self-guided trail.  

You can tell it's a plane tree by the flaking bark.

There are several silver maples in this section of Filnore Woods as you can see from the very divided leaves lying on the floor.  At this time of year they are brown on the top side and silvery underneath.

Just noticed today some velvet shank fungal toadstools in a fissure at the base of the trunk.

Hilltop Pond

Between posts 3 and 4 on our top meadow, there is a path through the brambles.  

Make for the oak tree and you will come across our winter pond.

It's quite sizeable but dries up in summer.  

After clearing a lot of the vegetation round it last year, we are hoping it will eventually lure back the frogs and newts that used to breed here.

A battle lost and a battle won

A headless carcass and  feathers scattered over a wide area suggest that this pigeon did not give up easily.

I think it must have been a fox that fought for her meal here.

A grisly sight but no worse than a butcher's shop

Just a song at twilight

Song Thrushes at Filnore Woods are proclaiming their territories already.  

You can recognise the song because each phrase is repeated two, three or even four times before they move on to the next phrase.

The new year is under way.  Days are getting longer 

and the first primrose is showing near post 10.

Brave rather than beautiful - somebody has been pecking at the petals.