A beech mast autumn

 

It seems to be a beech ‘mast year’ locally. The ground underneath seed-laden trees is crunchy underfoot, with a thick layer of fallen empty husks. The beech nuts, favourite food of grey squirrels and field mice, tend to disappear quickly but in a mast year there are sometimes enough left to feed flocks of winter migrant bramblings, my favourite finches.

Twice, during the 50 years that we’ve lived in the North Pennines, we’ve encountered flocks of several hundred bramblings feeding on the ground under the beeches in Stanhope Dene, a steep-sided ravine planted with beeches in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.

When the beech mast finally runs out, or if it’s a hard winter with snow on the ground (rare, these days), these chunky little finches visit our garden bird feeding station in January and February, and by the end of winter they develop this rather lovely caramel and black plumage.