More adventures from Lickey Hills

I have more adventures from Lickey Hills- same trip as last time, just a few different pictures. I took too many pictures that weekend that are way too nice to not use!

Lickey Hills covers 524 acres on the edge of south Birmingham, and has some pretty interesting geology that my friend Laura could tell you a lot more about in her blog. That means you get a lot of different trees depending on the soil types around- the south-west of the park is mostly deciduous trees like oaks, beeches and birch, while the eastern side is more coniferous. The southern end of the park actually counts as Ancient woodland is really important for some communities, as they house species that colonise and disperse slowly, so aren't supported in new forested areas. Ancient woodlands support flora such as bluebells- in the spring, Lickey Hills is covered in this purple flowers!

Inside a den to avoid the rain!

At the top of the park by the visitors' centre there's an awesome view across the whole of Birmingham (you can see the University of Birmingham's Old Joe!), and lots of heathland. Apparently people head up there in late summer to pick bilberries from the bushes there, although I've never been around at the right time to gather some myself. The heathland also supports common lizard and adder populations, which like to bask on hot summer days.

They always have loads of fun activities on up at the park, especially at the weekends. I'm probably most biased towards suggesting the GeoChampions (again, Laura knows more about this than I do), who look at the geology of Lickey Hills and do all sorts of fun things with that. There's volunteer work parties that clear scrub and brush too though, and kids events on- especially during holidays. There's a tai-chi group that meets on sundays by the Monument too! Basically it's a pretty cool place, and if you've been to the woods a lot, there's always new reasons to go with their events happening so often.

Lickey Hills Adventure!

Despite rather grey-black clouds hanging around Selly Oak, while I was in Birmingham last weekend I managed to persuade a few friends to take the train out to Lickey Hills. Although it's only about 15 minutes away on the local train, a couple of them hadn't been out there at all in three years of uni, so it was cool for them to discover somewhere new. I'd been there a few times before now, but not in the middle of autumn (it was even more muddy than normal!)

The leaves were really bright, especially in the arboretum. An arboretum is a type of botanical garden that contains lots of different species of trees, with some housing extremely rare species. None of Lickey Hills' trees are particularly rare as far as I know, but they were lovely with the autumn colour change of leaves!

The most striking trees are definitely acers. I've always really loved these elegant trees, with very fine leaves. Originally from Japan, they're very popular in Japanese gardens, and grow slowly- so they're often not the largest of trees. They're fairly hardy, and really give splashes of colour to gardens filled mostly with trees, which are much less colourful than borders and semi-formal gardens. Sheltered spots under other trees are ideal, as they thrive in semi-shaded places, so can be matched with bigger trees really easily.

Acers only make up a few of the 70 trees in Lickey Hills' arboretum though. Pines are some of the commonest trees in the park as a whole; there are big sections of the park that are coniferous, although there are also areas of deciduous trees to the south. Some of these trees were pretty great to climb- you always have to be careful and make sure to test your weight on branches, and climb with other people around just in case. It's awesome to see the forest from a slightly different view to just walking through the trees though.

A quick rundown of important tree-climbing things (I would say rules, but they're not really):

• Make sure someone's with you, just in case you injure yourself if you lose your footing and slip
• Wear sensible clothing & shoes- trainers are a good shout, as they're fairly grippy
• Don't climb in the rain, snow or ice! Cold can freeze up your hands and your reactions
• Don't go higher than what you're comfortable with; you need to be able to get down again!
• Watch out for broken branches, any that can't take your weight, and especially thin branches closer to the top of trees

The CVG crew leave their computers for an afternoon

I have loads more pictures from Lickey Hills, so there might be another blog post about our adventure next week!