Leaf fall, slowly: fifteen seconds in a beech wood

This is a slow piece: no voice, no music, just rustling leaves and fifteen seconds in an autumn beech wood.

Pori walks along a forest path with a class and their teacher, then stops under the European beeches (Fagus sylvatica) and looks up while the leaves come down. Nothing else happens. That is the point.

In autumn, beech is easy to recognise by what lies under it: triangular beech nuts that grow in prickly, four-lobed seed cases. Look again in winter, too. Beech trees often hold on to their dry leaves through the cold months, a habit called marcescence, so you may still find brown leaves on the branches in January.

Slow pieces like this one are for viewers who want nature without noise, and for anyone who watches with the sound off. They belong to our pilot of short stories set in places young people can reach, like parks, schoolyards and woods, and they end with the same invitation as every story: go outside, and take someone with you.