more cherry

admittedly he has fiddled about wth this picture but it's the dog's eye view.

and

the wild cherry is out

more ferns

or this lot which look like a convention of elderly seahorses.

hart's tongue fern

They look like a party of cobras having tea together.

cuckoo species

today's gift to the woodland folk

what is it, cuckoos ?

and there were two of these birds, they are much smaller than buzzards, and have a very distinctive fan shaped tail, and in the lower photo you can see the wing shape more clearly, the boss thinks they are female cuckoos (they were not kestrels or sparrowhawks). Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

After thought 2/12/06 are they kites?







(admin note:- I think Spot is asking a rhetorical question but yes, as the planet's biggest cuckoo species ever, we should all care, so for more info see http://www.bto.org/migwatch/text/species/cucko.htm).



And lovers beware! http://www.icdc.com/~fmoore/T/T/The_cuckoo_bird.html

mallards rising

There was a lot of bird activity at Kit Hill quarry early this morning. It was cold enough to freeze your b... but enough of that; this mallard flew away before I could introduce myself. His colours blend beautifully with the granites and mosses of the quarry face.

Spot

I'm back! It's all done and dusted, and I'm fine. Blur is caused by travelling faster than speed of light.

blackthorn

blackthorn in profusion, for a black day, and the sycamore leaves are coming.

a sad day

on a black day
I am Spot no more
but Spo, bright and gay;
and sore.

but there are too many unwanted pups in the world, so the T's had to go.

and Tomorrow is my birthday, and I am expecting lots of friends and presents and a party, at HOME.

and one of me, soon to be spo

Yes, I will have that pheasant. In the background you can see Aunty Sally thinking about taking the O's out of Frodo. Me it's just joie de courir.

pheasant's eye

not the red corn weed, but the beautiful narcissi poeticus, a type of daffodil; it was probably grown in these meadows commercially once upon a time. I don't know why it should be poeticus, certainly not for Wordsworth.

grasses

even grass can look quite interesting at this time of year. Unfortunately there are zillions of different types of grass, and only experts who eat sleep and drink them (eg horses, cows) know them all. This is some sort of sedge (probably, dope)

blueberry

this strangely luminous little red flower is the flower of the wortleberry or blueberry which is quite common around here and on Kit Hill They look like little chinese lanterns when they catch the light.

walks

today's hike was up in the meadows where the orchids grow. There has been a lot of thinning out of the woods to let in some air, and with any luck to help the rare heath fritillary butterfly to prosper on cowwheat and ribwort plantain, both of which are abundant. We plan to camp out all of one day in June to see if we can capture a good photo of it for my blog

more salad

you would need a lot of this to make lunch.

lords and ladies

this very suggestive plant is about to flower; I cannot imagine why it is called lords and ladies; it ought to be a dog something although I am not sure what :- (a printer's joke) I think the heart shaped leaves are very feminine as well. Roll on Friday.

stitchwort

the white flower is greater stitchwort, it tends to come out in clumps, usually it appears a bit later than the primroses and celandines surrounding it, five deeply divided petals and a four angled stem. Within a week or two it will cover the hedgerows locally.

corn salad

this is a very pretty, but tiny little blue flower, it is hardly noticeable. I don't know whether or not anyone eats its leaves these days. You can get some idea of the size of the flowers from the dandelion seed at bottom left

Deirdre

Tomorrow we say farewell to our friend Deirdre for the last time. She was a popular woman with a mordant wit and a generous heart. She spent her life looking after others and in the end was given so little time for herself; Spring came and she died. We will all miss her very much.

hiding from the mower

these daisies survive by keeping their collective heads down

ground ivy

this will do for today's gem, a lovely little patch of ground ivy, not dissimilar to dog violet but no horn on the flower

crowfeet

not exactly a gem but at the bottom left, in the murky swamp is some ivy leaved crowfoot growing amongst the rubble at Kit Hill Quarry.

(admin note:- he means bottom right but he is a bit dyspawsic)

drying out

up bright and early today, playing around in the quarry pond at Kit Hill. The larks were singing loudly, and I heard my first cuckoo of the year although I did not Spot it. The boss claims to have captured the same cuckoo up here last year BEFORE WE WERE BORN (does this count in my blog?) and insists that I blog it.


the aforementioned cuckoo; picture taken on 24/4/05 almost exactly one year ago (1BS) (2005 Christian era)