Norway Spruce

16 January 2014

Horbury

Norway spruce, Picea abies, a native of Europe has long cones (10 to 15cm), a shape that I've often seen used for the weights of a cuckoo clock. The four-sided needles, 2cm long, have pointed tips.

This spruce now towers up to around fifty feet in the middle of my mum's back garden. If I remember rightly, she planted it in the early 1970s.

Replenishing her bird feeders, I comment that nothing seems to be taking the peanuts. Minutes later a great spotted woodpecker flies down to feast on them.