Jasper and I walked up to the Tours de Cabrenç, three medieval (10th to 14th C) towers overlooking the border with Spain. There were very few silver birch, we saw only three or four others, and they were small and stunted. I reckon the farmer must have let this one grow, it was all alone in a pasture. Maybe their roots are not deep enough to anchor them against the Tramontane. It was sad to see this one felled by the wind, it had such beautiful bark.
Birch are not deep rooted and there is not much soil up there anyway. What I particularly like about this is the way the colours of the bark mirror the colours of the Pyrenean peaks.
