52 Weeks in Nature: Week 13

We’ve had a bit of an odd week, weather-wise, as we move towards April (and April showers).  Very much “Four Seasons in One Day” – going from sunny and blue skies, to showers, awful wind and on one day it hailed three times within a short space (whilst I worried for my vegetable seedlings in the garden).

It seems like the plants are really starting to push forth all around us and, as we noticed on one of our walks, the little mosses are also flowering.  We got down at eye level to them growing on a wall and, if you ignored the world around, what we saw before us was an alien landscape.

We used our wildflower key (that a friend very kindly sent us) to identify Field mouse ear chickweed (at the top of the page) and we really hope we got it right! We needed a bit of help from the “For the Love of Nature” facebook group we’re a member of to ID the weld (due to lack of flowers) and, open reading up on the plant, I find it is very good for natural dyeing (apparently it is also known as “Dyer’s weld” and “Dyers rocket”).  I hope the plant manages to grow well where it is (by a street lamp by the roadside) as, I’d rather like to have a go using some to dye some alpaca that we have (as a fleece, to process with some friends).

The daffodils are still in full swing, with the tulips entering side left.  I’m also noticing more and more violets (white and purple – although I’ve not included a photo as I couldn’t get a decent one this week – however, someone posted a photo of some amazing apricot coloured violets on G+ a few days ago and if you’d like to see them, I’ve shared them on the NinnyNoodleNoo G+ page).

Nin noticed what we think are sorrel (of some sort) leaves with little red hearts on them – very unusual. If you can confirm what sort of plant they are we’d be very grateful if you’d leave a comment telling us.

What happened last week in your local week of nature?  I love the opportunity to see how things change week by week, month by month, season by season, across the year.  If you’d like to take part (or see some more posts by other people) please visit The Magic Onions: 52 Weeks in Nature.

January Nature Spotting

A compilation of January’s photos from being out and about.

A quieter month for nature spotting – it’s been cold and grey and taking photos with Jess in tow can be difficult (she doesn’t always want to hold still on the lead – I missed a pic of a sparrowhawk because she was more interested in going in the opposite direction.)

The past few weeks I’ve mostly focused on flowers – those that I can find – and aside from those pictured, I’ve also seen some hawkbit (not sure which one), groundsel and shepherd’s purse flowering – but the shepherd’s purse was tiny-tiny (probably due to the cold!)

It’s been fairly mild, so there’s plenty of greenery to be had around here.

Joining in (a little late for last week) with The Magic Onions ‘52 Weeks in Nature‘.