autumn

Light pouring into the woods today, and, away from the sun's warmth, a frost flower in bloom.

one of the crow family, that includes rooks, carrion crows, ravens and jackdaws,  that lives in the woods along the Tamar. It looks like a crow or a raven but in the bright morning sun appears to have a lot of grey on the underside of the wings and throat. The silhouette is typical of a raven, but both crows and ravens are meant to be a glossy black all over. Hooded crows have well defined grey markings but are confined to Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. Maybe it is just a trick of the bright light.

Old Mill

This used to be a quiet wooded valley full of larch! Anyone who knows this area would be hard pushed to recognise the dam below Old Mill from this picture.

oh deer

in the woods today

larchmaggedon

This is a view I never wanted to see. Our village was surrounded by conifer plantations and mixed deciduous woods. Suddenly we have a new view of the village through the woods especially at night driving home. This is because the larch trees have been cut down. They are the host of a fungus, phytophthorum ramorum (see link), that has suddenly become rampant and is killing trees. It is a threat to our native oak, and the removal of larch is part of a scorched earth policy to prevent its spread. Unfortunately we are also at the beginning of an epidemic of fungal disease in our ash trees. We have lost 90% of all our elms, and there are threats to horse chestnuts and other trees (see link). Perhaps mother Earth is trying to shrug us off, or maybe we should stop importing all foreign plant species just to make money.

down in the woods today

The bluebell display this year is not as dramatic as usual. The cold wet weather after a dry sunny March seems to have confused the plants; some are past their best, some are yet to flower when normally they tend to flower at much the same time. It might get better, we will see. The very heavy rainfall has replenished the old mast pools and ponds. At long last there were plenty of butterflies about.

my tree

the bracket fungus eye (if they have an eye) view of the tree

Dismaltide

At this time of year in the meadows it feels as if the party is over, the tussocks are drab and collapsed, seed heads look like cigarette butts chucked on the floor and ground out, the carpet is sodden, and the buzz of conversation has gone. All that chatting up and flirting, and vivid displaying on the dance floor in party frocks is over. No one has cleared up yet, but one gets the impression that the party goers, once over their hangovers, somehow somewhere will start the party again next year.

Innycent fun

our morning walk (or in Spot's case madcap sprint), along the Inny, through the woods, bathed in golden sunlight and enjoying the warmth. The lower picture is at the same place where we came across a deer in September at much the same time of day. It shows how the colours change (see link).

on the forest floor

wood anemones and daffodils, and a few celandines, flowering in profusion on the floor of ancient woodlands.

and it remains cold

out today we saw a fox ambling across a field which is unusual in broad daylight, the cold must be forcing them out to scavenge. We also came across deer, badger and otter footprints.

it's getting wet

much more rain on the saturated ground and it will flood. Very strong winds blowing today, the English hurricane season has started.

carletta comes to visit

Carletta came all the way from Maine to visit us. As you can see she was very easy to train, and we quickly had ourselves eating out of the palm of her hand. The woods and meadows are a bit drab at the moment, but it was nice to have a visitor. Anyone else for a guided tour? (please bring own biscuits).

Luckett woods

It was a lovely, soft sunny light this morning, with a blue tinge to the mist in the Tamar valley below providing a marked contrast to the orange of the winter undergrowth.

pond life

beautiful colours from deep in the woods on a still, sunny day

ice fungus

at almost the same time of year last year, and under similar very frosty conditions, we found these peculiar looking excrescences on dead twigs and branches in the woods (see link for more pictures). It puzzled me at the time that I could not find anything remotely similar in the (many) reference books in Spot's library when it was so very distinctive. After much searching, we have found a similar picture on Google images, at the University of British Columbia botanical forum (link). There it is suggested that this is in fact ice, not a fungus at all. This is certainly consistent with its sporadic nature in cold weather, and it looks just like wispy snow. Can this be true? If so, finding it out is yet another demonstration of the phenomenal information power of the internet, and Google in particular.

autumn colour 3

in the woods, and an out of season (completely) rhododendron (ponticum) flower, giving the woods a feel of the jungle

autumn images 1

a deceptive and beautiful image from a long walk by the Tamar today. It was raining leaves, but it is very difficult to capture that image.

swamp dogs

oh what fun it is to run around until you misjudge how deep the swamp is. No dogs were harmed in the taking of these photographs which is more than you can say for this monstrosity
These things make me feel so much pain and anger I have to turn away. Is it so important to be so clever?

very old ivy

I have never seen a stem of ivy as thick as this one invading a hedge oak like some alien monster emerging from the bowels of the earth ... corrugated iron by cornwall farmers associated