Mystery tree against a bright sky Long-tailed tits call to each other as they flit through the trees. A woodpecker drums on a hollow trunk. All through the wood chiff chaff proclaim territories and seek mates. Sunlight pours down to the herb layer lush with new growth after days of rain. The wood resounds with flowing water, waterfall, beck and adventitious water-tracks here today and gone tomorrow. Not tomorrow, more rain is forecast. So we seize the day, a day all the more wonderful because March has been wet and dreary.
Willow catkins gleam sunlit against hues of blue. Great trees with contorted and broken limbs catch sunlight and shadow. Silver wands of birch thrust upward toward the light. In a trickle of water at our feet, opposite-leaved golden saxifrage flowers amongst saturated mosses and wild garlic flows down the bank in waves of green leaves. There are flowers of dog’s mercury and fresh honeysuckle leaves. Nuthatch call and I hear the high-pitched call of goldcrest. The morning is so still there are clear reflections in the deep blue of Kentmere Tarn. To the east is Calflay and Long Houses, the home of delicious Hefted Honey. I like the notion of hefted bees nectaring on the flowers of Kentmere. And it's so warm a few bees seek nectar from daffodils by Kentmere Church.
I love the aesthetic of a mystery tree, its trunk a dark moss-green, rising to a tracery of branches in a feathery crown of soft pink. The canopy is a palette of delicate hues as trees transition into spring with flower and leaf buds yet to open. The season of tree flowers is a favourite of mine. Across the image sequence there are depths of blue in the sky, then sunlit cumulus clouds, a perfect foil for trees.
I love the aesthetic of a mystery tree, its trunk a dark moss-green, rising to a tracery of branches in a feathery crown of soft pink. The canopy is a palette of delicate hues as trees transition into spring with flower and leaf buds yet to open. The season of tree flowers is a favourite of mine. Across the image sequence there are depths of blue in the sky, then sunlit cumulus clouds, a perfect foil for trees.
A grove of birch on the fellside above Kentmere Hall shows amethyst against winter bracken and on the crags there’s the dark green of juniper,yew or holly. It's hard to tell at this distance. Ewes in the barn are listening to Radio Cumbria and the bleating of lambs in nursery pastures cuts through the music. A green woodpecker calls from the trees by the church. Mistaking our path, we find ourselves heading up toward Whiteside End and so have a different perspective on the Pele Tower of Kentmere Hall and the trees where the track descends from Garburn Pass.
During the afternoon fair-weather cumulus clouds gather. We come upon scarlet elf cup on a mossy log and stop to admire them. It’s a beautiful fungus, a vibrant colour in early spring when trees are in tight bud. The fruiting body of scarlet elf cups is attached to a stipe hidden beneath the cup whose outside is paler and downy. The fungus appears on decaying wood and twigs in the leaf litter.
The oddest find of the day was a clot of frogspawn in the middle of the road past Kentmere Church. We had squeezed into the fence so a tractor carrying hale bales could pass. Had the frogspawn dropped off the tractor? Maybe female frogs don’t always make it to safe water. Taken short, with frogspawn. Sounds about as likely as falling off a hay bale. There it was in the middle of the road, our only frogspawn of the day.
The oddest find of the day was a clot of frogspawn in the middle of the road past Kentmere Church. We had squeezed into the fence so a tractor carrying hale bales could pass. Had the frogspawn dropped off the tractor? Maybe female frogs don’t always make it to safe water. Taken short, with frogspawn. Sounds about as likely as falling off a hay bale. There it was in the middle of the road, our only frogspawn of the day.
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