News from the world of trees 2018 #1

Here is my first round-up of tree news articles from around the world in 2018. Click on each of the pictures if you would like to read the full stories.

50 million trees to be planted in the North

In early January the UK Government announced that an English Northern Forest of 50 million trees is to be planted between Liverpool and Hull – the Telegraph reports…

A helping hand for Tufty

A project to reintroduce red squirrels to their old forest homes in the Scottish Highlands is being carried out by the Trees For Life charity, says MailOnline…

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Reading Challenge update – one year on

The books I read in 2017 – click on the image to see a bigger version in which you might actually be able to read the titles!

It has now been a year since I “signed up” for the Reading Challenge on Shaz’s Jera’s Jamboree blog. It’s a way of getting out of your comfort zone of always reading the same sorts of books.

Over the course of 2016 to 2018 I am planning to tick off EVERY box in each section of the challenge. I am logging my progress here.

Firstly you will notice at the top of this post an image of all the books I read in 2017 – not as many as I would like. I tend to read my Kindle on the bus and my long journeys to work ceased when I was made redundant in April!

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2017 tree following 12: The year of the 100 elms

The end of the year for the 100 elms, Ulmus ‘New Horizon’, in Cardiff’s Pontcanna Fields – with next year’s buds waiting…

It’s time to say goodbye to the avenue of 100 disease-resistant elms, Ulmus ‘New Horizon’ in Cardiff’s Pontcanna Fields.

I visited for the last time on Christmas Day, when the trees were more or less the same as when I first chose them to follow just under a year ago.

Next month I will choose a new tree for 2018, but here I will look back with fondness on the year of the 100 elms…

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Tree following link box for January 2018

Your dream tree could be waiting for you – I couldn’t resist using Photoshop to mess around with this image of a twisted pine tree taken on Christmas Day in Cardiff’s Blackweir Fields

The tree-following link box has now closed for another month. To explore everyone’s updates, please go straight to the bottom of this post.

In the northern hemisphere the trees are still resting at the moment, so it’s not too late to choose one to follow. If you are someone who is thinking of following a tree for the first time, read all about the idea here and join us in February.

I can’t believe this will be my fifth year of tree following. In 2014 I followed a hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), in 2015 an empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa), in 2016 an oak (Quercus robur) and in 2017 a row of 100 elms (Ulmus ‘New Horizon’)

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Llanelli wildfowl in January

Argentine red shoveler (Anas platalea) with an itch

I didn’t have many days off over Christmas and New Year and the weather was mostly wet and windy, but we did manage to visit the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust’s Llanelli Wetland Centre this week, on a day that was quite dry but with a cold wind.

We have been there many times before, as we are WWT members, so many of the birds seem like old friends…

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