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A return to seek frogs at Sizergh

28/3/2025

Telling of mating frogs at Sizergh, proved irresistible and so I returned with a friend eager to see such a spectacle. The castle was beautifully reflected in the water where mallard chased each other. No sign of frogs and there seemed less frogspawn. Maybe mallard gobble it up.
Water trickles through pools in the rockery garden where we found frogspawn. Then on a gravel path we spied frogs before us. Two appeared, approached each other, went briefly into amplexus where the male grabs the female with his nuptial pads and hitches a ride.

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Frogs in the lake at Sizergh Castle

24/3/2025

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Sizergh Castle

A lovely spring day in the gardens about Sizergh Castle. Daffodils are resplendent, chiffchaff are calling. Charlie the cat comes to greet us and seeks a lap to rest on. All is peaceful. We look for frogspawn and kingfisher and do not find them. There are kingcups and bull-rush and the ground is strewn with willow catkins in the season of tree-flowers. In a long dry spell I think some flora is held back, waiting for refreshing rain. Wandering the shore of the lake below the castle, we look for frogspawn in the shallows, amongst fallen leaves and the fronds of aquatic plants.

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Foulshaw Moss with Bog Myrtle Catkins

18/3/2025

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From Foulshaw Moss to White Scar and Whitbarrow

Over the wobbly wooden bridge we go, up to the high platform to look down across Foulshaw Moss toward White Scar and Whitbarrow. In the foreground there's a pool of open water, with seed-heads of bullrush. Then birch carr, downy birch in the peat of the moss. Slender silver wands reach up through a blaze of bog myrtle, twigs and catkins a haze of rich ruby. A frosty morning quickly grows warm in bright sunlight, illuminating the weave of plants in the moss, enriching colour. The Burning Bush was bog myrtle, my friend exclaims, fragrant and ablaze.

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Alder beside the RIver Kent

14/3/2025

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Alder is a motif along the RIver Kent, favouring riverbanks and wet ground. In winter, the crowns of mature trees are dark with cones, and catkins awaiting the coming of spring.
In Kendal. a mingle of alder and hazel grows in a sliver of river bank beside the walkway. Hardly trees, there's little soil for them to grow to maturity but a couple of days of perfect light when catkins are at their best gives a rare opportunity to study them close-up. All the image lacks is siskin, redpoll and goldfinch feeding on seeds as last-summer's cones burst open.

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Leighton Moss in early March

6/3/2025

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From Lillian's Hide

All eyes were intent on snipe, closest to the hide but camouflaged in reed-stubble. Water-birds were hunkered-down, roosting and preening. A peaceful scene, then whoosh- up they went in a moment of panic. Alighting on the water, they became distinct. Courtship pairs in their best breeding plumage; pintail, gadwall, wigeon, shoveller and mallard. White feathers drifted on the water where it met the reeds, discards from preening.

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Kentmere on the first day of spring

1/3/2025

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Male hazel catkins with a deep red female flower

Hazel catkins herald the coming of spring in a drift of gold. The woodland track is fringed with coppiced hazel, slender shrubs with catkins that are perhaps the earliest tree-flowers. Where yellow male catkins are ready to release pollen we look for red female flowers, tiny and fewer. A glimmering light reveals a hazel growing along a fence-line bordering Kentmere Tarn, a shapely tree unlike the wands of woodland coppice shrubs. Its limbs are green with moss, its crown glorious with golden catkins. A play of sunlight and mist shows the hazel deep bronze, then pale gold against the still waters of the tarn. It's enchanting.

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Spring comes to Kentmere

1/3/2025

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Green woodpecker and raven call from the wood, with small birds piping. Tracks are puddled and muddy after a mid-week downpour. Sunlight and mist gives a glimmering and constantly changing light. With most trees bare of leaves our focus is on lichens and mosses, on the herb layer. A clump of wild garlic has been swept downstream and lies uprooted in a beck. The first leaves of wild garlic show, and opposite- leaved golden saxifrage. Winter storms have brought down trees and the track has been cleared and made safe for walkers.

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A return to seek frogs at Sizergh

Frogs in the lake at Sizergh Castle

Foulshaw Moss with Bog Myrtle Catkins

Alder beside the RIver Kent

Leighton Moss in early March

Kentmere on the first day of spring

Spring comes to Kentmere

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