Balls

During the week I had a very pleasant ride heading towards the Bristol Channel. From the moment that we set off I kept noticing what I first thought were distant rookeries. The further we went the more of these ‘would-be’ rookeries I saw. As we got nearer towards one which took up at least six trees I realised that what I had first perceived as a rookery was, in fact, mistletoe. It was growing in huge balls and was rooted into so many branches of each tree it reminded me of the decorations on a Christmas tree … this was nature’s own decorations. Perfect balls all sucking the juice out of the trees – as mistletoe is a parasitic plant. In the whole of my life, I have never seen so much mistletoe growing and certainly never seen it growing all in such perfect balls!