Alders by the sea

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Scotland, sea loch, trees, winter

Today I fell in love with alder trees. It’s not a species I’ve really looked at much before, partly because I haven’t seen many close up. Driving home from from work today I stopped to take my coat off because I was too warm and I noticed the trees right beside me. I’m glad I did 😍. I shall watch their catkins, flowers and leaves open during the spring. When I don’t have the car (only had it this week because Toad has been ill with a virus), I can walk along to this spot before catching the bus.

The far one in the first pic is a not an alder.

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A dark star

Using what daylight there was yesterday I worked a little more on my “Dark Star” temari. It is a flower as well now.

Lichen on a stump

A crowd of Cladonia on an old spruce stump in the garden and a few Elder leaves have opened already.

 

5 January 2019

In flower: Vinca major (periwinkle), primrose, gorse, daisy

Spotted: ladybird on a last year’s broad-leaved willowherb plant, daffodil shoots under wild cherry trees

Thinking about flowering: opposite-leaved golden saxifrage near the pond

Making: what I’m calling a Dark Star temari

Eating: thick lentil soup (lentils, onions, celery, tomato purée, chicken stock, squash, some leftover fragrant rice, a couple of small potatoes)

Rhododendron wood from my hedge hacking

Hazelnuts

Tags

Argyll, autumn, boggybrae, garden, trees

There is a hazel tree down by the pond in the north corner of the Boggy Brae. It planted itself there, which I’m pleased about because the ones I planted got killed by roe deer gnawing. This year there was a little, very little, crop.

Fungi in the garden today

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Cortinarius bolaris

I think this is Dappled Webcap/Cortinarius bolaris. The ones I found were growing under a large beech tree.

 

‘rust’ on edges of gills

cap is 3cm across

 

 

Plum tree down

We’ve had a bit of wind. Two parts of a several-trunked, very old plum tree came down today. The colours of the rotted wood are quite pretty.

Postia caesia

Postia caesia/Conifer Blueing Bracket on a dead conifer