A trip to Drumboe. I made this trip for two reasons:
The first was to check on the state of leaf buds on trees to see if I could find any more unseasonal activity.
The second was to follow up a lead that I had missed a species on all of my previous visits. I like to think that I'm quite observant, and don't miss much on my photographic trips, but read on to see what I had missed.
Dull and wet, but mild.
A fairly comprehensive set of images of tree buds follows. The findings are very interesting.
Sycamore (left) and Horse Chestnut. A bit more green than I'd have expected on the Sycamore.
Oak and Hazel. Not much activity there.
Larch and Birch. Not much happening.
The Elder looks quite encouraging.
The Snowberry has, however, gone the whole way and the leaves are out. The earliest leaves I saw this year were in March.
And that's after a very hard frost on Wednesday night.
So what did I miss? Only the largest object in the wood - a Sequoia, or Giant Redwood. I'm not sure how tall it is, but I'd say around 60 metres. I must look upwards more often.
I spotted a Hogweed plant flowering on a verge on the journey back. I was even more surprised to find a Hoverfly nectaring on it. Melanostoma scalare, I think.
This is a not infrequent occurence on Donegal roads. What you can't see in the picture is that a red collie was doing all the work. The farmer was just walking along talking to passers-by and to car drivers.
That petrol's quite cheap, by the way.