What did you see in the woods today?

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Ramsons - thousands of them. Not flowering yet but pungent enough!

There are Plenty of squirrel here and birds of all kind in good voice. Upon picking up a small chunk of punkwood, a woodlouse and a millipede made their escape. Just goes to show the number of creatures that rely on dead wood for their habitat.
 
HEARD the first cuckoo here in Fife on the 6th, then again on 8th.
In Assynt some moorland lochs have islands = no sheep grazing = extensive native woods - never saw so many warblers & cuckoos in my life!
 
I've just returned from North Wales, the woods up there are full of bird life right now after an abundant cone crop. Finches everywhere including some nice flocks of brambling and crossbill
 
We had our first Willow Warblers today (New Forest). We've been listening for them but haven't heard them until now. We had a good view of Gold Crest. Haven't seen these in years....but regularly hear them. Also had a Raven flying over. Poor view but good to hear. During our walk, we flushed several pairs of Mandarin Ducks from the water courses we were following.

We saw a large herd of Red Deer, a small herd of Fallow Deer and a single Roe Deer. It's a rare day that we don't see deer. The forest is full of them.

As yet, we've not heard any Cuckoos.
 
Did a spring fungus foray. Has been dry, so found next to nothing.

Came across a caterpillar of the Drinker moth later on though
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Pinus coulteri probably has the biggest cones, 40cm long and 1.9kg max.
Pinus edulis supplies most of the edible "pine-nut" market in North America, native habitat are the 4-corners states: Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
All other species should be edible but tedious to collect, particularly from serotinous cones.

Today, I saw two Cabbage Whites (Pieris rapae ?), most, most unusual.
Commonly early spring butterfly that I expect to see is the Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa).
I think the common name in the UK is Camberwell Beauty, they over winter as adults.
 
Not in the woods yet, but standing on one of the bridges in the village looking down into the gin clear water at the wee brown trout nestled into a current and a dipper working it's way under water going up the stream. Lovely sunny frosty morning, going to be a cracking day. :D

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 
Not in the woods yet, but standing on one of the bridges in the village looking down into the gin clear water at the wee brown trout nestled into a current and a dipper working it's way under water going up the stream. Lovely sunny frosty morning, going to be a cracking day. :D

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
Sounds great Goatboy. This morning I've taken the kids swimming and made tea (slow cooker pulled pork). I'm sitting here looking out the window and thinking we need to get out.
 
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I must get my slow cooker out. Great when you live alone, come im to cooling smells and its like the elves have made your tea for you :D cheers for the reminder.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 
Cramp ball fungus. From my dad's garden.....pretty much the woods. It was on the underside of some very dead and rotting wood. Ash I think. Would post a PIC but it's in the boot of the car. Derp.
 

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