Tree Following July Update

 For Tree Following this year I'm following one of the several wonderful old silver birch trees on North Merchiston Cemetery in Edinburgh. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I started walking round this cemetery (and the nearby Dalry Cemetery) every day for our #DailyExercise during the first UK lockdown last year. And we're still doing the same walk regularly.  

The birch tree was looking very luxuriant at the end of June

If you look closer at the tree from the other side, you can see that it's growing very close to a small holly and a small whitebeam tree - all three seem to be thriving!

The leaves of the birch are starting to show their age now - with brown spots appearing here and there, though mostly they still look healthy

There are lots of small insects in and around the tree, though it can be tricky to catch them on camera! This is a marmalade hoverfly:

I wrote in the last tree following update that the blue tit nest box in the tree had been damaged and the eggs or chicks eaten by the great spotted woodpeckers that also nest in the cemetery. It's good to see that the woodpecker chick is thriving and has become a bit of a local celebrity (It's now fledged and in fact there may have been two chicks!)

And I'll finish with a few photos of the tree from yesterday

For Tree Following and Nature Notes.