DOWN TO EARTH in The City

Following the alarming cut back of an ancient Yew tree in March 2015, I'm please to report that two years of healthy looking regrowth to this ancient specimen, reported by specialists to be around 850 years old, provides great hope and blessed relief that the tree has not only survived the ordeal but should continue to thrive and live on for many more centuries. Two years of regrowth Looking healthy in parts Hopefully the tree will thrive and produce further healthy growth for many decades and maybe centuries The ancient bole shows character and charisma, and proves to be photogenic from any angle.  It has been lopped on many occasions over the decades and not always sympathetically, but for the first time in its history it is now protected with a 'tree preservation order'. A 'trysting' tree for lovers was Richard Cadbury's account in the late nineteenth century, and although it probably goes unnoticed by many passing by today it is

What are Nature Improvement Areas?  The Wildlife Trust for Birmingham and the Black Country say- NIAs are designed to revitalise urban and rural areas by creating bigger, inter-connected networks of wildlife habitats to re-establish wildlife populations and help achieve nature’s recovery. NIAs will improve the health of the natural environment to support food production, reduce flood risk and increase access to nature. NIAs encompass areas of land that include natural features and wildlife habitats but also include roads, housing developments and other man-made elements. They are areas that have been identified for their opportunities to restore nature at a landscape-scale alongside other land-uses. NIAs should enhance existing ecological networks by: • Improving the management of existing wildlife sites • Increasing the size of existing wildlife sites • Increasing the number of wildlife sites • Improving connectivity between sites • Creating wildlife corridors Follo