Field journal

The hilltop from the air in late summer

Woodland Hilltop

  • Aerial view across a hilltop slope of pale wood-chip mulch and dry grass dotted with small green shrubs, among gray-green pines and darker oaks, with forested hills and a distant ridge beyond.

    Pines, oaks and scattered shrubs over mulched ground on the hilltop at the end of the dry season.

  • Looking straight down on pale blue-gray pine crowns and darker, rounded oaks casting long shadows over light ground of wood-chip mulch and dry grass with scattered green shrubs.

    Pale crowns of what are probably gray pines (Pinus sabiniana) among oaks, seen from directly above.

We flew a drone over Woodland Hilltop Arbory on the afternoon of September 22, 2024, at the end of the dry season. From above, pale-crowned pines, probably gray pine (Pinus sabiniana), and darker oaks stand over pale ground of shredded wood, probably left by the 2022 mastication under the previous owners, and dry grass, with small green shrubs scattered across the slope.

These stills are among the earliest views in our drone record of the hilltop, taken shortly before we began digging test contour swales for the Woodland Hilltop restoration that October. Later flights over the same ground show how it changes.

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