Hazel up the hill

Hazel catkins are beginning to open and the tiny red flowers are beginning to show.

Hazel flower

I just checked in our Collins Tree Guide and it says that old hazel plants may reach 15m in height. Our UTH (up the hill) tree reaches about that height (18 long paces) except that it is horizontal so I should probably call it length. I started pacing from just beside the boulder in <<< this pic, sploshed through the boggy bits along the length of the trunk, 

Fallen but flowering hazel

and had reached eighteen by the time I got to the end where the young shoots off the old trunks are flowering and budding. If you enlarge the photo by clisking on it, you may be able to see the puddle underneath in whcih I was hoping to find frog spawn but didn't.

Nearby is a fallen birch tree on which I found this frilly fungus.

Fungus on birch

and this resupinate one.

And all along, under and beside both horizontal trees were small bluebell shoots. I must go up there again in a few weeks when they should be flowering.

Bluebell shoots under birch

This is the root ball of the birch. You can see the chunks of slate around which its roots have grown and, to the right in the photo, a very large slab. The foundations, terracing, cellar and lower walls of our house are made of this locally available rock. Beyond the birch root ball are the huge roots of a beech tree which towers above the hollow where the hazel and birch grow.

The exposed rock under the beech tree is covered in liverworts, mainly White Earwort (Diplophyllum albicans) and Overleaf Pellia (Pellia epiphylla), I think.

White Earwort looking very green!
It is white when dry. There was a constant drip of water over the rocks where this was growing.

Pellia epiphylla

I liked the dark colour of the collapsed Scaly Male Fern (Dryopteris affinis) leaves from last year and concluded my hazel flower hunt thinking that there's a lot to be said for collapsed plants.

A mossy day between sleet showers

Forewarned is forearmed and the weather forecast said wintry showers so waterproof trousers, a drybag for the camera, and a bucket for moss samples was the order of the day this morning for a wee tramp up the hill on a moss search. I'm getting to the stage now where I often have some idea of what kind of moss I'm looking at, though that's restricted to the four dozen or so that I'll find on our bit of the boggy brae.




Today I found:

Common Tamarisk Moss, as always,
(Thuidium tamariscum) (upper) and



Greater Fork Moss (Dicranum majus)

Dicranum majus

Little Shaggy Moss (Rhytidiadelphus loreus)

also with D.majus

Swan's-neck Thyme Moss (Mnium hornum)

Some of the "swans' necks"

Some very damp Mamillate Plait Moss
(Hypnum andoi or mammillatum)

Wet moss–Hypnum andoi on a branch

Lots of young haircaps on what I think is Common Haircap Moss (Polytrichum commune)

Silhouetted Rusty Swan-neck Moss (Campylopus flexuosus)

The sphagnums seem like a whole new field! This one is Blunt-leaved Bog Moss (Sphagnum palustre).

I got back to the house just before a heavy fall of fiercely slanting sleet. There have been a few more showers throughout the day and there is new snow on the hills.

The north-west bank

Been tidying the north-west bank this morning. It is where bluebells grow (not showing yet but the leaves may be under all the moss), also Devil's Bit Scabious at the far end, plus primroses and snowdrops. It's the brambles  and seedling holly trees I have to keep in check.

I also made the steps visible again:

mossy path

some of the moss at the side

String tin and selvedge signs

This is my string tin. Much of the string is the cut off selvedges of patchwork fabrics.











It gets used for tying bundles of twigs and dried flower stems together for use in the stove. They hang up below the mantelpiece to finish drying before they are used.

The bits of sea glass are from the beach and stuck on with Blutak.

The selvedge string also gets used to mark things in the garden, here (from last July) a few Whorled Caraway plants, so that they don't get mown down by mistake. I wanted them to set seed so that they'd regrow this year.

This marks a new patch of bluebells
where there were none before

This, fully translated for lawnmower-wielding Toad, means "Do Not Mow Here". He gets it :)

A gathering together of scraps and a breakfast in the sun

Today has involved a gathering together of "mossies" and "earthies" from my fabric scrap box for a new commission. I actually emptied the box. This has not happened for years! So the blues and reds and brights and lights are sorted too. And the box needs a good dusting.

Then came a late breakfast of date sandwiches and tea outside. The temperature in the shade was only 6.5ºC but it was comfortable in the sun. I watched a small lek of midges and heard a mosquito in one ear. They are not biting yet but I have had bites in February occasionally. They don't usually get itchy at this time of year.

Below is the hazy view through winter trees down to the loch from where I sat.

Turning my head to the right from that view I enjoyed the light shining through the overwintered leaves of monbretia.

Another right turn of the head revealed more daffodil shoots and then I got up to inspect the state of the mossy rocks under the now dead deep-pink-flowering rhododendron.

In its tussle with some holly trunks, I think the holly won. Fortunately there is another plant slightly uphill from this which is still alive. Those dead trunks will become firewood in due course.

On the rocks in the foreground I checked out the mosses. There is a fair bit of Swan's-neck Thyme Moss (Mnium hornum) which can be quite striking in its old, dry state. The pic below shows  some old shoots and a few new, fresh green shoots of the same plant. Intertwined with them both are shoots of Common Feather Moss (Kindbergia praelonga) of which we have masses at the Boggy Brae. There is also a liverwort in there (bottom left corner), probably White Earwort (Diplophyluum albicans).

Capsules of Mnium hornum

Kindbergia praelonga/Common Feather Moss
growing at the base of a wild cherry tree

An icy welly wander

Got myself up the field for the sunrise this morning and enjoyed the clear light in the still air, sparkly snow, and ice puddles.

It isn't often this cold here. We really do get the benefit of the North Atlantic Drift of warm water but it's nice to have a spell of cold weather once in a while.

Back home