bark patterns at Georges Hayes

wild daffodils

Today we chose to visit Georges Hayes, a Staffordshire Wildlife Trust reserve, with ancient woodland and wild daffodils which were just coming into flower, I expect the best is yet to come, but it was still spectacular accompanied with a hint of the heady scent of wild garlic providing a suggestion of what is yet to come!

wild daffodils, wood anemone and celandine 

what is it about puddles?

When I was a child  puddles would entertain me for ooh .... minutes! I would splash through them, ride my bike through them with legs up high out of the way!, throw stones and soil into them and poor unsuspecting worms and beetles would unfortunately get tossed in occasionally too just so I could see if they would make it out again!
So why is it that they still hold some fascination some 40 plus years on - I still love splashing or slowly wading through puddles watching the small waves and ripple form, providing I have wellies on! and on other days I will stand near to one watching the reflections not wanting to disturb them if it is really still. Today there was a breeze, but the sun was shining and at the top of our lane is a magnificent oak tree and as I approached it the reflections in the puddle across the lane stopped me again, this time I had my camera with me. The reflections kept changing as the breeze picked up and calmed down and as the sun kept getting hidden behind passing clouds and reappearing again, I could have stayed there all afternoon clicking away - as it is I found it very hard to delete any of the photos. I kept 18 which are all currently on my flickr page here are just a small selection, not necessarily the best as they are all different!

silhouettes, shapes and shadows

today's dog walk produced a feast of wonderful images

Robin's pincushion

Isn't it a great name!!!! Robin's pincushion is actually a gall caused by the tiny larvae of a gall wasp - found on wild roses - this is in the hedgerow on our lane

photography by Angela Smith

rotting damsons - provide a feast

We went looking for speckled wood butterflies today - having arrived at the place in full sun, where I have seen plenty all week, not a single one appeared - we stood waiting to see one for a good five minutes or so and then caught a glimpse of one, so we moved on to where we saw it and found the reason why they weren't in their usual spot. They were feasting on rotting damsons...

we counted at least a dozen, several landed on me as I was taking the photos too and
others were landing on vegetation near by

An Autumn walk - along the hedgerow

Just a few pictures from today's dog walk

speckled wood

sloe

hawthorn

hazel

hazel

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hazel

damsons

Dragonfly encounters

Today's walk and the dragonflies stayed still for me!
Southern hawker

Common darter