Dalkeith Country Park - the ancient oaks

One of the things that Dalkeith Country Park is renowned for (as well as the bluebells, which you can see in Sunday's post) is its ancient oak wood. These trees are amazing, all gnarled and broken but still hanging on. The park management realised a few years ago that because of the livestock that lives in the oak wood very few seedlings were growing and the wood would one day die out. So they've planted seedlings in protected positions, putting fences round them to protect them from the cattle and rabbits. You can see two of these protected seedlings in the background of this photo which shows one of the (probably relatively young) mature oaks.

I like the contrast here between the ancient oak tree and the modern plane in the clouds!

There's something beautiful too about the empty acorn cup here:

and the patterns in the camopy here:

and finally, for Weekend Reflections:

May is Walk in the Woods month, find out more on the Tree Council website.