Birch Beauty

Persecuted by the blind fundamentalist conservation lobby with such an intensity and with such fervour that the Court of Species Rights, had it existed, would have been kept busy for years, the birch remains Queen of Blacka. We all surely know the splendour of a lone specimen clothed in delicate gold jewellery in autumn.

But the woods too have their qualities. The bashers and the power saw brigade speak of them in the same tone of voice as they would a plague of rats. This time of year they hold out the promise of spring with their soft purplish tops moving in the air. This is the part of Blacka that SWT refers to as impenetrable, where birch has spread and is closely packed, the sort of woodland that imported grazing animals are here to prevent.

Well Blacka's wild deer play their part here and need no burly back up force to help them. Throughout there are deer tracks in a complex network; following them is likely to get you lost as in a maze. But it's certainly not impenetrable and there are many charms.

Blacka Blogger just wants there to be some places where things have not been top-down managed, by humans or their proxies. At the very top is Natural England. Where they see sheep or a pile of cow dung in a once pleasant path NE officers coo "Ahh a management plan".