Just a note to say that I'll be delivering an illustrated talk on the yew tree at St. Mary's Linton (nr. Ross-on-Wye) this coming Friday - 7.30 start - £10 on the door. The talk has been initiated by a by a very enthusiastic group of local folk who look after the magnificent ancient yew in the churchyard - somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 years old. There will be lots of beautiful images to see and some fascinating tales to hear.

Great day in Derbyshire last Wednesday. On the road by 4.30. On the hills shortly after 6.30 & the light was great. Started my day in Dovedale - a haunt I remember vividly from my days out when a student at Trent in the 70s.

I'd heard on the grapevine that there are serious concerns about the arrival of ash dieback in this glorious ash dominated valley. If, as or most certainly when it does arrive here the landscape is likely to be changed out of all recognition. I had the place to myself at this early hour - just the way I like it - as Dovedale's enduring popularity makes it something of a tourist honeypot from now on and through the summer months. This may be part of its undoing as there's always the possibility that motor car tyres (admittedly only in the carpark at the front of the valley) and innumerable walking boots have the potential to help introduce the microscopic spores of Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. But then there are always blow-ins. Frankly, I think I have already seen a handful of trees in the valley bottom that could well have ash dieback, but I can't be sure.

Enjoy this amazing place while you can.

On the hunt for remarkable ash trees and ash landscapes and the day was set fair last Friday for a foray to The Mendips. This range of hills bisected by several limestone gorges is prime territory for the ash and makes you realise just what a difference will occur in the landscape when ash dieback really makes its mark here.

6.30 a.m and I'm walking the lip of Burrington Combe near Blagdon and the only soul I meet is a chap walking his dogs before work, otherwise this world is mine. Great light. Great colours. And the sidelit textures and shapes of the ash woods across the Combe are just what I'm after.

After a couple of hours it's time to move on to Cheddar Gorge and again I find the solitude and the light. I'd forgotten quite how many whitebeams there are at Cheddar. I think I found one of the local specialities - Cheddar whitebeam, but there is a lot of common old Sorbus aria here too, and when the leaves are not fully out it can be tricky to positively identify the different species. I'd forgotten quite how much parking space is set along the road at the bottom of the gorge.... must be heaving in the height of summer.

The afternoon shoot was a trek around the National Nature Reserve above Rodger Stoke - what Gerald Wilkinson in his 'Woodland Walks' considered the "best preserved ashwood in the Mendips", and I'm tempted to agree with him. Although ash dominant there is also an abundance of oak and hazel with occasional hawthorns, whitebeams, hollies and even small-leaved lime. I even spotted a fairly rare flower of the woodland floor - purple gromwell. Can't say I've ever seen it before in all my woodland travels, but maybe I just wasn't looking for it. Fabulous views out across the top of the woods to the Somerset levels beyond and while I was above the woods on Stoke Camp I discovered a quite remarkable acreage of ash regen. - some of it two or even three years old - all from seed blown out of the nearby woods. It made me realise how little these fields are grazed and also perhaps the lack of rabbits and deer to munch it all down. If this was left to do its own thing I'd love to see how quickly an ash wood could establish here.

A few samplers for you to enjoy here, but a lot more to come soon, and a big announcement shortly......

In my recent book, The British Oak, I came to the conclusion that there were no longer any native oaks to be found in Britain bearing mistletoe. A conclusion, I now discover, to be incorrect. None of the recent books on trees or my rich and varied array of tree expert contacts could shed any light on oaks with mistletoe. There were many historical references to this phenomenon; photographs of some of the Victorian finds showing top-hatted gents proudly standing beneath them, but nobody seemed to have relocated any of these trees in recent times. Unbeknown to me one J.D. Box had written a paper on the subject in 1997, and after some highly exhaustive research had located eleven oak trees still bearing mistletoe, seven of which were English oaks.

Fellow tree buff David Griffith was recently in touch with me and kindly informed me that he had managed to locate one of the Herefordshire trees. Since I was passing nearby yesterday I walked down to see it. Not the most impressive oak I ever saw, but still a strange and beautiful sight to see, with one large clump of mistletoe at the top of the tree and two smaller, barely visible ones lower down. Estimated age of the tree is about 180-200 years old.

I'm always excited to see something completely new and different and when one realises that there are only six other English oaks in the whole of Britain like this then it becomes even more remarkable.