Sunday, 11 May 2008

New woods and sunshine

Weatherwise, it's been a fantastic week. This weekend was the same and next week looks good as well. The temperature has been in the mid 20's centigrade with bright sunshine.




I've had a great week going out most evenings and, of course over the weekend. I had a little more success with the badgers, filming 2 adults and two cubs.




I also spotted this little lapwing chick well camouflaged in amongst the ruts left by four-wheel drive vehicles.





I had a wander around some new woods. I'll talk about these woods in more detail later. I was content on this ocassion to meander along the pathways and explore the new areas. On my travels I spotted fallow deer, a pair of munjac and a lone fox cub. I found myself a nice sit spot and had a brunch of bacon, egg and beans.




The woods are vibrant with new growth. Bugle and ground ivy covers the woodland floor but there's also scarlet pimpernel, early-purple orchids and doves-foot cranesbill.





This year I'm not just trying to identify wildflowers, but trying more to understand their medicinal and edible properties. I plucked some leaves of this garlic mustard to complement a salad. It tastes like garlic too but it doesn't have the long lingering after taste of normal garlic.




Of course, the ever present nettles are pretty versatile as well, particularly the young leaves.



Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

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