Hello, I’m Rachel. I write about nature and creativity to encourage connection and wellbeing. In these regular Create with Nature posts, I write about what I’ve noticed, created, and what I’m reading (and watching), all in tune with nature’s seasons.
Hello, thank you for being here! Today’s witterings are all to do with a recent trip to Eryri (Snowdonia) one of my favourite places to be and a very particular type of habitat we searched out while there. It’s longer than usual, so grab a hot beverage and if you’re reading this as an email you might need to click on the link at the end to read the full post.
Noticings
You might remember me reading Guy Shrubshole’s Lost Rainforests of Britain. It revived my interest in our wet and wonderful ancient forests and provided inspiration for our trip - using the rainforest map on Guy’s website. Not being able to get up the mountains meant a wonderful opportunity to visit the valleys and gorges where the rainforests thrive…
Yes, Wales does have rainforests, as do parts of the rest of the UK and Ireland, and parts of France, Norway and Spain. They have been known as Atlantic oakwoods, or simple wild woods. Obviously, they are not of the tropical, orchid, and monkey-containing variety, but temperate oceanic rainforests are just as lush, green and wild as their more famous cousins. And just as biodiverse. However, sadly they are even more threatened. The twisted, small moss and lichen covered trees were not valued by those seeking only to use trees for timber or land for agriculture so they were cut down and destroyed. Currently, only 1% of land in the UK is covered by rainforest, despite 20% having the right climatic conditions. Most of this is on the Western ocean/sea-facing areas such as Cornwall, Dartmoor, Eryri, Cumbria, and NW Scotland. One of the more famous spots is Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor, which partly inspired Arthur Conan Doyle when writing The Hound of the Baskervilles.
But what are these places really like? They are best explored slowly with all your senses, not places to rush through simply to get somewhere. Autumn provides additional layers - literally as the golden oak, beech, and birch leaves fall, adding their hues to the green carpet. The layers of the forest, the twisted trees, scrub, and mossy, fern-covered rocky floor envelope you in softness, filtering out the wider world. Just the sound of the birds and the water.
Ah yes, the water, well, obviously, it’s a rainforest and we were in Wales in Autumn. Rainforests need rain. It’s one reason the UK and the Atlantic seaboard are perfect for them, we notoriously get a lot of rain. Water was everywhere, dripping off the trees, the rocks and squelching underfoot, with the abundant moss soaking it all up like a sponge. And this also means you get petrichor - the smell of rain. I’m sure you’ve experienced it even if you didn’t know its name. Eventually, of course, all this rain has to go somewhere and once it’s percolated through the trees, ferns, moss, and earth, the rivers running through these wooded gorges surge with cold, clear water. Which means a beautiful spot for a dip.
For me, it’s the tiny wonders that draw me in. You have to stop and investigate the moss-covered tree trunks, the nooks, and crannies in rocks, and look up at the ferns growing above your head in the trees. You might say it is all just moss, but once you slow down, you spot different types - rare bristle moss, star moss, feather moss, and lots of others that I’d need to be a much better naturalist to ID. Temperate rainforests are home to rare species, some of which are found nowhere else. You might not think they are important - we see them everywhere, but they give homes to lots of tiny creatures and act as sponges, soaking up water and preventing flash flooding. They are also a vital carbon store. And it’s not just moss, look closer again and see the layer of lichens like a tiny pixie cup lichen happily living on a tree trunk along with its mossy friends. You might also spot tiny creatures that make this tiny world their home, like this miniature slug creeping up a tree amongst the moss.
Then, there’s the fungi. They were everywhere. Autumn is the classic time to spot the fruiting bodies (aka mushrooms). Most were fairly unobtrusive until you noticed one, and then you realise they were all around you. Tree trunks were surrounded, and fungal armies marched up them and along fallen ones. Some were spongy, and others bracketed the trees like crenellated semi-circles.
One that looked like beige brains oozed out of the crevice of a branch. All doing their job of returning the nutrients to the soil. One of my best noticing wins was spotting a tiny bonnet mushroom peaking out of the moss on an oak tree. This definitely was a tiny wonder.
Ah - the acorns. From tiny acorns mighty temperate rainforests grow. Most of the UK’s rainforests are made up of Oak, with beech, birch, hazel and larch in the mix. Unlike their tropical cousins whose canopy towers above the forest floor, our’s have much more inclement weather to deal with. So rather than the grand stately Oaks seen in the parklands of country houses, Rainforest oaks might be hundreds of years old but only a few metres tall, hunkered against the wind. Their branches, coated in their soft layers of moss and lichen twist and turn, as their roots hold strong on the steep ravines that are often the only places these precious fragments now survive. Visit in Autumn and amongst the golden leaves. is an added layer of acorns. They are everywhere, crunching underfoot, clustering amongst the slate. No squirrel or jay could possibly hoard all these away. And so they start to root where they fall, the white twisting tap root pushing into the leaf litter. There are also those which found conditions to their liking tucked amongst moss on a tree trunk. Part of me wants to go back in a few months and see if they actually manage to grow.
And then the even more wonderful thing is that these sprouting tiny wonders manage to grow into tiny oak trees, and then teenagers, then towering grannies. As their munching fluffy predators (sheep) are usually excluded from these woodlands, the forest can rejuvenate itself. It doesn’t need us to plant lines of trees wrapped in protective plastic, they are free to grow as they have for thousands of years, adding to the wonderful jumbled, twisted mix of trunks.
But these are not all ancient pristine untouched places. There are treehouses. Not one you’d build as a child. But trees in houses. Despite what they might look like, some of the rainforest fragments we visited in Eryri have reclaimed the land from the human communities that once eked out a hard living on this land. Their dwellings, now abandoned, are roofless and coated in moss and ferns. Where tables and beds once stood, trees now reach to the sky. They stand strong, showing that if we let them, these places can thrive.
Creating
Mountains are one of the main themes for the art I create in my head and so these trips are great for gathering inspiration. I’d looked forward to sitting and creating sat amongst the landscape. But Mother Nature had other ideas, I don’t even think a waterproof journal would have survived the amount of precipitation! So I had to content myself with soaking up the scenery and taking lots of photos. I was restricted to drawing while sitting on the hostel window seat. Not a bad view at least!
I’ve started a series of sketchbooks I’m reserving for outside. They are hardbacked Seawhites journals with paper that can cope with watercolour and ink. I’m not being too precious about them, they are very much for playing and capturing what I find interesting, not necessarily a true representation. I have one for landscape and one for details. These sketches and ideas are then what I am starting to work from back in the studio (aka dining room). I find that if I work with a photo in front of me, it takes multiple attempts to loosen up and produce the more abstract art I want to do. Working from a sketch gives me the shapes and textures that first interested me to build a painting on.
And so, on another wet and windy day back home I had a play. I’m working on how best to combine watercolour and acrylic inks to get the result that is in my head!
Watch this space for more Welsh landscape inspired pieces!
Reading
Keeping with the theme of Rainforests and other wonderful British woodlands, I’m going to recommend some books and podcasts that I’ve loved. They have educated me and transported me to these wonderful places.
Links to the books go to my UKbookshop, where, if you purchase them, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. It supports the independent UK book industry, unlike certain big companies.
My main recommendation and inspiration/information source for this trip/post was The Lost Rainforests of Britain which I reviewed in an earlier post.
I think Isabella Tree’s Wilding and James Rebank’s An English Pastoral both help to understand agriculture and the role it has had in changing and shaping the landscape we see today and therefore how we have come to lose so much of our ancient wild habitats. Regeneration by Andrew Painting, the Warden for The National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge Estate, it shows how we can restore amazing habitats while working in conjunction with the humans that live, work and play there.
On our way up to Wales, we listened to this podcast, by Countryfile Magazine, with Elizabeth Jane Burnett, where they take a slow wander in Wistman’s wood, An ancient rainforest in Dartmoor, marvelling at the moss. She believes, as I do, that you have to wander slowly through the forests in order to fully appreciate them.
So, thank you for reading, especially having made it all the way to the end. I’m still trying to get back into a routine of doing these regularly so it means a lot that people are reading, commenting and liking what I’m doing. See you next time.