One of the entrances to a badger’s set. This one has at least half a dozen entrances: some setts can have many more.
A fox’s den is also excavated, but has a narrower hole.
CORRECTION – while this post was waiting to be scheduled, someone saw the inhabitants of the hole at dusk. They were a fox, a vixen and at least five very young cubs – perhaps four weeks old as their fur was starting to change to reddish brown.
The leaves are now beginning to burst from these sticky buds.
These catkins are now fully out.
Yesterday’s hedge sparrow wasn’t a sparrow. And now a dead nettle which isn’t actually a nettle. It gets its name because the plants look very similar to nettles, and they are dead, i.e. harmless, lacking any sting.
A dunnock, a.k.a. hedge sparrow.They look like slightly smaller versions of house sparrows, but are not closely related.
The upper surface of this fungus is folded so looks with a little imagination like a copy of a human ear moulded in brownish jelly.
It used to be known as the Jew’s ear fungus. It commonly grows from the trunk or branches of an elder tree. According to tradition this was also the tree from which Judas Iscariot hung himself.
The specimen below is about as close as it gets to actually resembling an ear.
This quietly beautiful woodland flower is yet another sign that spring really is finally coming.
A kestrel perching as it scans a field for prey.
This rusty-coloured lighen was growing on the trunk of an apple tree. The greenish blobs on it are moss.
As the weather warms up, more insects become visible.
Yet another sign of spring at last.
This fungus looks for all the world like a tuft of black hair.
It seems to be a fungus which goes under the the proper name of Phycomyces nitens, and grows on dung.