Old track on the southern boundary of Cranham Wood

The sunshine today has been delightful. I woke early, probably in anticipation of a bright day having been following the weather forecasts in recent days, as I wanted to drive to the old beech woods up on the limestone escarpment beyond Bisley.

Buckholt wood, an ancient woodland near Birdlip, has a predominance of beech trees that occasionally form into cathedral like spaces that are shown to best effect when the leaf colours transform just before their fall. Unfortunately I arrived a few days too late. I did walk about in the wood for a short time, but decided to  go where the sun was shinin.

Cranham woods is another ancient woodland close by so I only had to drive about two miles. I did notice that some of the beech trees I drove past did still have a reasonable leaf cover so I went to the south facing side close to the village. A jay walking (!) on the single track road hopped off onto the woodbank enclosing the wood and that prompted me to pull over and go looking for it. It was a rather hopeless task in a thick old wood, and of course I saw no more of it.

But I was pleased to be there once inside the woods and I found myself standing for minutes on end just watching and listening. I climbed up the slope and found some of the glades with huge beech trees and clear spaces where the light could penetrate. I took too many snaps of details such as fungi, and red holly berries, as well as shots of the canopies.

I came to this track close to the southwest boundary and saw this gap allowing a view over towards Painswick Beacon on the line of the Cotswold escarpment that falls down into the Severn Vale above Cheltenham. It gives a good impression of the colours of the woodland as well as its structure with large boles of old timber that grow and then eventually fall at their own speed. I must come back before the winter cleanses the year’s deciduous growth. The earthy smells when tramping through the undergrowth were wonderful, and I noticed quite a few fungi which will be worth looking at more closely.