early bees

a honeybee (?) sunbathing, and a bumblebee feeding on mahonia. These photos are for the ongoing record of the changes taking place in this area. And before Spot can consume them. Why do dogs insist on trying to eat bees and wasps? It is mildly reassuring that the same bee appeared at about the same time last year.

ladybird spring

This ladybird was in the same place yesterday; it may be caught between getting frostbite and sunburn.

more Spring

the beautiful, slender, diminutive native daffodil is coming into flower throughout the woods. This specimen is perched precariously on the banks of the Tamar in the deep grooves left by the river when it is in spate and it floods through these glades. Further down the river I found a very early flowering wood anemone. At home there were bumblebees, ladybirds and butterflies in the garden. It may be unnatural but it feels like Spring.

why is it so cloudy in Cornwall?

because everyone flies over us on their way to North America leaving huge swathes of condensation trails behind them. Stop it now.

the tower of Stoke Climsland church is on the skyline.

mystery moss, liverwort or hornwort

nor despite some superficial research into mosses, liverworts and hornworts (actually life is too short) can I identify exactly what these red organic parts belong to. They are not scarlet elf cups.

flocks of what? Fieldfares?

a small but noisy flock of a thrush like bird but I have no idea what they are (except the starling at the top of the tree in the second photo, and the chaffinches in the bottom picture).

addendum:- after a sleepless night of research we think they are fieldfares, a gregarious and occasionally aggressive type of thrush