Collective Punishment

The wooded area below Cowsick can be idyllic on a sunny morning. In the mist today and yesterday there was a spooky atmosphere. Suitable perhaps as several of the trees can be classed as among the Undead. Several years ago a huge number of trees in this area were the object of a mass murder plot perpetrated by Sheffield Wildlife Trust. They were poisoned and left standing to be a lesson to all trees that did not know their place. One or two refused to die and remain almost healed from the effects of the attack, and now heroically contribute to the natural beauty that draws us here. That episode of collective punishment is unprecedented and so far unrepeated on this scale since then on Blacka. I try to repeat this story every so often lest we forget just what kind of institution we are dealing with in SWT. Anyone starting with an expectation of sound judgement and a love of wild nature from a wildlife trust should beware that the word trust may be in their name but should not transfer to those who have dealings with them.
Many of the trees vandalised were fine mature trees of the birch family whose Latin name is Betula - another link with punishment, as it comes from the Latin for beat, birch twigs having been used for punishment in days now gone.
Happier birches, neither punished nor punishing, are presently decorating the woodland along the route down from Devil's Elbow, though this too would have been a jollier spot if the sun had broken through earlier.