great spotted woodpecker

one of my favourite occasional visitors to our garden, looking rather goony today, with a very striking black moustache.

first of the season

the first marsh marigold (one flower in a sea of green) and the first greater stitchwort appear by the side of the Inny. We record these first sightings for future reference. Yellow and white flowers are difficult to photograph in the wild without a filter. The raw images have been modulated to exaggerate the detail and reduce the highlights.

stellar flowers

the beautiful flower of magnolia stellata, easily blighted by late frosts but bursting out now as the ground warms up. A native of Japan but very welcome in Cornwall.

slow to worm up

meanwhile, rising above all this colourful confusion and doing its best to look like a drab brown twig is this indolent slow worm warming up in the sun. So indolent indeed that it allowed me to move the leaves (of herb robert) covering its head to take a closer look, blinked a bit and went back to sleep.

white red green blue alkanet

green alkanet is a handsome plant with a vivid blue flower. The naming of the plant seems to suggest some degree of colour confusion; the name alkanet is thought to derive from the arabic al henna (arabic is very guttural) for red from the red dye extracted from its roots; I would have called it blue alkanet myself. Growing alongside this plant is a very unusual white variant, no doubt best called the white green blue red alkanet. The leaves are deeply fissured and the plant is described as "roughly hairy".

Duchy College

Duchy College, on a sunny Sunday morning after a very wet and windy Saturday. Unfortunately Spot has taken to chasing horses; they do not like it and if this blog stops suddenly it will be because he has had what passes for his brain kicked out of his very silly head.