Tuesday 22 April 2014

Tree watching - larch update

The garlic mustard is coming into bloom under the larch tree, which I'm studying for Tree Following.

If you look carefully in the photo below you can see the long tailed tits' nest, a lovely hanging basket woven from lichen, spiders webs and other such delicate materials. We didn't see the birds yesterday, hopefully they're hiding in the nest, sitting on eggs.

Further upstream, it was lovely to see several harts-tongue ferns just starting to uncurl.


while some are slightly further out.



and the orange ladybirds (Halyzia 16-guttata) are still hibernating in the iron railings!


Today's poem for NaPoWriMo is over on my Shapeshifting Green blog.

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And a reminder that the pdf of an updated version of my chapbook Bougainvillea Dancing is now available to buy in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. 10% of proceeds from the sale of this book go to VSO for their work in Malawi and other parts of southern Africa.

I've also set up a photography section of the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop where you can buy downloads of some of my nature photos. The first photo available is the larch flowers.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.



12 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

That is a fascinating photo of those hibernating ladybirds Juliet.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Thanks Weaver, I'm always fascinated by these ladybirds, i never see them anywhere except when they gather in these fence posts...

RG said...

Such great pix. Same for the ones from the dandy garden day before!

Have a great Earth Day!

Dartford Warbler said...

The long tailed tits have built a beautiful nest in your larch tree. It looks very substantial.

Gillena Cox said...

A Happy Earth Day to you dear Juilet, thanks for stopping over at my blog and sharing

much love...

Ruthie Redden said...

I love the delicate shapes the harts-tongue ferns make as they unfurl.

Naquillity said...

those ladybirds look much like our ladybugs only slight difference is color. yours look more orange and ours is red. that nest looks pretty big. hoping it'll produce some healthy long tailed tits. hope all is well. have a great day~

Crafty Green Poet said...

Hi Naquillity, we have several species of ladybirds with various patterns and colours, the most common ones are red with black spots

eileeninmd said...

The ladybirds are cute! And I love the pretty ferns! Nice update! Have a happy week!

Michelle May-The Raspberry Rabbits said...

Wishing you a beautiful Earth day my friend.

Draffin Bears said...

Hi Juliet,

I loved seeing all your photos - thanks for sharing.
The little ladybirds are lovely.
I saw a dark bluish/black one the other day.
Happy week
hugs
Carolyn

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

Wonderful spring pictures -- you are such a good "noticer" and you have the ability to let us share what you see! A lovely post for Earth Day (although I am late in reading it) but of course this is a perfect post for any and every day.