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