Today, despite it being Monday, we had an outing to enjoy the spring flowers in Heaton Woods, scheduled so that Joan could be with us.
The first stop was to look at the Butterbur flowers and Alice gave us some insight into their complicated lifestyle (I may add in some detail later - or perhaps it’s a topic for an indoor presentation?). Amongst the Butterbur there is a large pile of woodchip, the remains of an large willow that fallen across the path last year, and growing on it a fungi which we have tentatively identified as Peziza repanda - Palomino Cup.
The path sides were blanketed in Lesser Celandine, still flowering, Opposite-leaved Golden-saxifrage and Garlic Mustard. The Wood Sorrel was a bit bedraggled after recent showers, but still nice to see, and the Wood Anemones are almost over. Inevitably the star of the floral show were the Bluebells blanketing the bank on the other side of the beck, in contrast to the more demure Greater Wood-rush on the north facing slope.
There are a number of healthy patches of Bistort, with a few flowers starting to emerge, and a few London Pride plants that we assume originated in the neighbouring gardens. We had a brief venture into Cliffe Wood, crossing Shay Lane, to check on the Greater Stitchwort - it’s at least two weeks behind the flowering time of last year, but still nice to see the first flowers amongst the Bluebells.
We had good views of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker as it flitted between trees, fence posts and the ground. There were several Orange Tip butterflies and a Green-veined White, and a couple of other insects caught our eye - a Crane Fly that seemed to be laying eggs in the mud, and a distinctive hoverfly which I think is Leucozona lucorum. Have a look in the gallery to see if you agree.
As we headed back out of the woods we noticed that the small patch of Sweet Woodruff was starting to flower, but our attention was quickly diverted by a massive bracket fungus on a nearby birch.
The trees and ferns are about to take over the mantle from the ground flora, with the beech leaves bright green as they unfold, Whitebeam standing out, and the Oak just starting to come into leaf. We saw newly unfurling fronds of Hard Fern, Male Fern, Broad Buckler and Lady Fern.
It was great to be able to spend time looking closely at the plants and spend time enjoying the sun, shadows and only a brief shower.
Julia