Joyce Woods
Our walk today took us to Honeypot Wood, an ancient
woodland, approximately 4 miles from Dereham. During World War II it was
used as a bomb dump area as a result of which it had still visible concrete
roads around and across the site. This made access easier than would otherwise
have been after a day of heavy rain.
Throughout our walk we looked carefully for twayblade, greater butterfly orchid and broad leaved helleborine ,the three flowers
mentioned in the handbook, but sadly we were unable to see any of the three. However
we did see lots of speedwell, vetch, wood avens, both pink and white campion,
bugle and, best of all, herb paris (never seen that before so proved to be an
exciting find).
The saddest part of the day was seeing ash tree dieback
throughout the wood. It seemed to involve trees of all sizes from very large to
those which had cut down and had started to regrow not always with success. We
noted many cut and tied bundles of long straight branches of small diameter and
wondered if they were destined for garden spade/fork handles.
We heard many birds competing for top birdsong prize but
felt it must go to a robin at the top of a dying ash tree. We saw rabbits but
no deer although evidence was visible in the form of fern tip and wild rose
pruning.
It was an interesting walk but we felt great sadness over
the plight of the ash trees there.
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