Nature Diary Rocks History Gallery Links Home Page Sycamore
(continued from previous page)THIS IS MORE than can be said for a spreading Sycamore, which is now just a stump, carved into a rustic seat in the Country Park car park. Six or seven years ago, when the parking ticket machine was installed, a digger was used to cut a semi-circular trench about ten yards from the tree to run the cables to the machine, slicing off a proportion of the roots. Was this root-pruning the beginning of the end for the old tree? It's impossible to judge. But if it had been up to me, I'd have sited the ticket machine elsewhere. I've heard that as part of a multi-million pound scheme to convert the Country Park into a extension of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park there's a plan to turn the deer shelter into an art gallery. Will this require better access, an all weather road for example? Will it result in streams of visitors tramping over the roots of the ash? Lets hope that it doesn't involve digging trenches across the spread of roots of the ancient ash.
Fungi  Fungi include a large frilly looking growth on an old tree stump. It has pores, not gills, and is corky in texture. An ink cap at the edge of a wood has a cracked appearance.
Lake and Pond 
The park's Canada Geese are gathered on the Upper Lake.I try dipping an unpromising looking pond on the slopes to the south of Bretton Park. It has steep sides made of logs and was probably constructed as a water hazard for horse trials. There's not much in there but algae, a few thin sinuous worms, a very small freshwater shrimp and a larva which I think is a rat-tailed maggot.
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