Ahh trees! I am a big fan of trees. All trees. But especially ancient trees. I often think, “If only ancient trees could talk what fabulous tales they’d tell!”
But when I say “ancient” what do I mean? Trees, like us, grow and age at different rates depending on a variety of factors that affect them. A few years ago we took part in the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Hunt here in the UK. This project is trying to measure and map as many ancient trees as possible all over the UK. To take part we learned how to ‘hug’ our old trees to measure their likely age 🙂
We found a few very old Oak and Beech trees around our area, about 300-400 years old. As well as hugging each tree, which was fun (!) we recorded as much information about it as we could including its location, its condition – for example whether it had any broken limbs or hollows in the trunk.
We also looked to see if we could see any creatures or plants living on the trees. Ancient trees are amazingly rich habitats and as trees age the organisms that they support continues to grow – they have their own little ecosystem as well as being significant in the wider habitat.
The fattest old Oak we found was over 4.5 metres around its girth – which was a bit longer than our collective ‘hug’ at that time! But we did check our measurements with a tape measure as well as using the ‘hug’ method. The size of this tree means it is about 400 years old – this was an amazing thought and we talked about the history it had lived through.
For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week I wanted to show you tree-hugging but sadly I seem to have misplaced those images so I thought I’d share some photos of some of the wonderful old trees we’ve visited recently instead …
J Peggy Taylor
Oak Trees Studio 
Beautiful trees, thanks for sharing 🙂 Do you think the age of coppiced trees is reflected in the girth of the base? There are some never-been cleared copses near to us, and some of the bases are ginormous!
You are welcome 🙂 You are right about the girth of coppiced trees – that is certainly an indicator of their age. Coppicing is a sign of ongoing management so there may be some local history sources that mention the wooded areas. It would be great if you could check on the Ancient Tree Hunt map and see if your trees have been mapped. This is the link to the mapping page.
Such gorgeous trees. Definitely the hugging type. Thanks for playing.
A very enjoyable challenge for me, Cee – thank you 🙂
I also love that trees can be used for (calibrating) dating methods! And that you can tell by the rings what the conditions during growth were and even what season it was. Amazing, right? 🙂
Yes, we have looked at tree rings to see the growth patterns … and trying to remember which years we had dry, or wet, summers 🙂 I remember using the height of trees to estimate their age many years ago, but this hugging method was much less mathematics and much more fun 🙂