Sheep in mist

The spring remains cold and somewhat delayed. Yesterday evening a sea mist moved the five miles or more inland to our valley and the sheep and lambs sought shelter in a clump of trees.

April in Brede High Woods

 

A long walk in Brede High Woods now rapidly getting into full spring mode with primroses and wood anemones everywhere, but only a few bluebells out.

Many of the sandy paths had tiger beetles running and flying along them and I took the picture of one trying to hide behind a small stone.

The frog spawn in Holman Wood Stream has now hatched out and the black tadpoles bask in the shallows. Butterflies included peacocks, brimstones and commas (see photo of latter) and I saw a few lizards and frogs.

Black rubber lichen

Coming home from a walk I noticed some dark patches mixed up with fragments of moss on the gravelly drive in front of the house and, on closer inspection, these turned out to be the lichen Collema tenax, much swollen after recent rain.

I have seen this at Pagham Harbour and Lydd, but not at South View before so I wonder if I might have introduced it on my boots. Mind you, though common it is very easily overlooked with its unprepossessing appearance and dark colour.

A walk with Elly

I walked with Elly, our two-year old granddaughter down the lane, over the stile then up the field to see the cows. In the wood next to the field there were wood anemones and celandines (see above) and the badgers had been doing their spring cleaning. There was a sandy trench-like track through the bluebell leaves from one sett that looked more like the route of a trial bike than the work of badgers.

I wondered what Elly might remember of episodes like this when she is older and I thought back to my own childhood and the few now almost enchanted memories of a world long gone when I was two.

Slow-worms return

A lovely sunny day with an April breeze. I looked under the roofing felt refuge in the small meadow in our garden and there, enjoying the new warmth, was the first slow-worm of the season.