King’s Forest in Midsummer

Just north of Bury St Edmunds sits around 2000 hectares of Forestry England conifer plantation. Lesser known than Thetford Forest, this woodland is similarly covered with public-access trails for walking, cycling and horse-riding and is even regularly used for dog-sledding!

Each year in June, we take a late evening walk here with Jon Tyler, of Wild for Woods, to mark the eve of midsummer and, each year, it turns out to be one of our favourite events. There is a lot of wildlife between the trees and, if you head out into the patches of open heathland and scrub between the trees, you can often hear woodlarks singing their bouncing-down-the-stairs song or spot blue-shining oil beetles making burrows in the sand.

This is the story of midsummer’s eve in King’s Forest.

The sun was still high as we set off at 6 o’clock, down the first of many paths between the trees. The day had been hot and the heat lingered in the sand and in the bark of the trees, scenting the air with the sweet sap of the towering Scots Pine and the citrussy Douglas Fir. A little way down the track, a bronze-coloured slow worm basked in the warmth of the sand and the evening sun before feeling the vibrations of our feet and slipping quickly away into the undergrowth. We paused to notice the plants that grew on either side, the blue spires of viper’s bugloss and its rarer cousin, the burgundy-flowered hound’s tongue, a specialist of the area. Elsewhere along the path, wild raspberries fruited among clumps of brambles and bracken. We collected a few fruits and leaves as we travelled: raspberries and pine needles, wood sage and thistle flowers. The thrumming wings of hummingbird-hawkmoths shimmered over everything, as they darted here and there sipping nectar through their straw-like proboscis.

We had a thrill when a roe deer emerged onto a fire-break ahead of us and even more so when another appeared beside it followed closely by a tiny fawn. Not long later we spotted a rare Warted Amanita mushroom (Amanita strobiliformis) growing large and pale on the woodland edge.

We were searching for a hidden place in the forest, a wide mound in a circular clearing of pines, an ancient burial ground or barrow. As the trees widened and we came upon the site, a shaft of evening light broke through the tree branches and hit directly upon the top of the mound. It sounds so unlikely, but it’s just part of the enchantment of this place at midsummer! We laid out our picnic blankets and fished through rucksacks for our packed suppers and sat on the grass to eat together and enjoy a tisane freshly brewed from the plants we had collected on the way.

As we packed our things away to start heading home, the sun began to set and we caught a beautiful glimpse of Venus shining just below a slender crescent moon. It seemed that this celestial pairing finally persuaded the resident cuckoo to retire for the night, its persistent calls at last falling silent as dusk deepened. We marked the sunset with a ceremony of lighting birch torches, passing the flame from torch to torch around the circle.

And, as darkness slowly gathered, we walked back to where we began, with bats flitting and diving above us, bringing a perfect close to an evening filled with nature, companionship and midsummer magic.