I've been checking dormouse boxes in my local wood this morning. An absolutely scorching day - like summer :)
No dormice yet, but:
The wood anemones, primroses and violets are flowering and the chiffchaffs were shouting all through the wood.
The badgers had been refurbishing the bedding in their setts and marking their domain with piles of poo in their latrines.
There was the comfortable sound of bees busy in a tall willow with the catkins shining in the sun. Comma butterflies were there - and in my garden when I returned.
A number of the boxes had the start of tits' nests. On the way home we spotted a little owl sitting in an elderly oak underneath the mistletoe.
A mistle thrush is building in the street tree outside my house
What an enjoyable mormning!
Wildlife observations March 23rd
Here are the anemones
....and a close up
......and primroses
It's times like this (bad news aside) when it feels so good to be alive.
I love the smell of primroses,and wallflowers,I've got some out near my deck, when I was sat there the other day it was wafting accross, heavemly.
That's the nice thing about this time of year, flowers are few and far between ,so you have time and room to really look at the smaller delicate ones,like the anemones and primroses.
Very true sue, they would probably be lost on us at a more abundant time of year
I didn't know you have Wood Anemones there too :) You're very early, here they bloom in late April/May. Forests are full of them, whole ground is white, looks great. Wish it was April already..
Yes, we have carpets of them too Evert, sooo beautiful
They start flowering now before the bluebells come out, but later there will still be some flowering when the woods are carpeted with blue.
The wild bluebells must look great too. We don't have them in wild here, but we do have Hepaticas. They usually bloom in April (before Wood Anemones). In early summer there are big carpets of May Lilies (Maianthemum bifolium), and Lily-Of-The-Valleys (Convallaria majalis - our national flower) in forests where they have enough water (not in those dry Pine-forests which have their own nice plants)
Just love to see all the different wild flowers growing in their natural habitats!
Don't know the Maianthemum - I'll look it up :)
What grows in the pine forests?
:) Maianthemums are rare in UK, but grow in some places. I remember last year I sent some to a guy there, he was very happy to get them ;)
Pine forests are dry, the ground is mostly sandy. The most common plants in that kinds of forests are heathers (Calluna vulgaris), lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), some bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus), Cat's-Foot (Antennaria dioica), Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) etc.
Then there are spruce forests, which are moist, and mixed one, which has plants from both kinds. Of course we have tundra in North too, groves, bogs, and all kinds of different places, coastal vegetation is very interesting too. http://plantsdatabase.com/go/49967/ http://davesgarden.com/fp.php?pid=38064 http://davesgarden.com/t/372475/
I just looked them up in my wild plant book. Yorkshire and Lincolnshire only when that was published years ago - so probably even less of them now......
Thanks for the links. That coastal view is great. The boulders are strange just sitting there - are they erratics? (dropped from a melting glacier sometime in the past)
there is a wood along the Antrim coast that will look like snow in a few weeks
:-) Hope you'll take your camera
:) I can send you some Maianthemums in Summer if you want.
No, the boulders aren't erratic, they are all the same rock. It's all rocky there, and looks jost awesome. It is great to sunbath on the smooth rocks. The rocks got their shape during the Ice Age.. Because of the Ice Age, there are big blocks/boulders all over Finland, some of them are very big. Of course there are very big rocks too, they are a very important part of our landscape. (and don't forget the lakes, hmh)
Thanks very much Evert. I'm not sure that I have the right growing conditions for the Maianthemums, will have a think about that and let you know :)
here's a carpet of anemone nemorosa in a garden I visited today.
