Tree Following

It was a lovely spring day on Monday when I visited my larch tree for Tree Following, during my weekly trip round Colinton Dell, by the Water of Leith.

The hawthorn bush near the larch is looking lovely just now

and the wildflower meadow is looking very green

The bush vetch is in bloom very close to the larch

while the larch flowers continue their slow transformation into cones

In a different part of the Dell I was delighted to see a small copper butterfly, which I rarely see here (though we often see them on Arthur's Seat or Corstorphine Hill). I was even more delighted that this one was happy to stretch its wings out for a photo.

Monday was one of the those strange bank holidays which not everyone acknowledges is a bank holiday. I didn't even realise it was until someone asked me why I wasn't taking a Bank Holiday break from my volunteering for the Water of Leith Trust? Why would I want to take a break from walking round this delightful place on a sunny day? (Admittedly if I'd realised it was a bank holiday I may have taken a break from the litter collecting element of the volunteering, but there was very little litter yesterday anyway).

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