This old apple tree

The oldest apple tree in England is 212 years old or thereabouts. I don’t know how old this one is but older than me at any rate and maybe 100 or 200. For all I know, it could be older than the official oldest apple tree.

Moss furs its boughs. It bears the scars of storms, amputations, woodworm. Grass grows in its hollows. Its bark is grey and cracked and scaly, like the skin of an ancient dragon. But in Spring it was a frothy mess of blossom and now it stands in the cool green shade of its own leaves, its dragon bark flecked with sunlight. Later, there’ll be apples, sour cookers.

We hung bird-feeders from the rods of new growth that sprout from it. From dawn till dusk, birds flit among its branches: tree sparrows, great tits, blue tits, greenfinches, goldfinches, dunnocks, long-tailed tits, blackbirds, robins, sometimes a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Below, the grass grows long. There’s cow parsley and sticky weed.

A few days ago, I noticed trackways where something big was coming through the hedge and trampling its grass. So I left the Trailcam out, on its little tripod at the foot of the tree. And it captured footage of:

A badger

and a fox cub, rooting for peanuts that fell from a bird-feeder yesterday