After running the morning’s errands, I got back around lunchtime with plenty of time for a walk. The children had friends over so we had a gaggle of children with us for the duration. It was a beautiful spring day with the sun shining – so much so that I had to dispense with my jacket for the first time this year.
We headed on the usual route and everyone was in a good mood about it so that was nice. Despite the racket, there was a nice chorus of birdsong about. I am going to have to try to get up early some morning to try to get out in the dawn chorus.
It is quite interesting to have a bit of a look around in the roots of fallen trees. You can see a lot of detail in the growth in among the decay
Further on a the crossing point of the stream, the frogs were still laying. I managed to snap this guy lurking just on the surface.
With the approach of spring, we’ve had a week of frost and foggy mornings which is pretty normal for Longford. It didn’t really start to clear until around lunchtime, but we walked off into the fog with the dogs anyway.
The photographic pickings were a bit slim with the poor visibility but I took a couple of shots in the thick of the forest just for the record.
The resting place was a lot quieter than on Sunday with the group of scouts but at least we didn’t leave any trace behind.
We crossed the new bridge and it does make the track a little easier – it works quite effectively. When we got out of the forest the fog had cleared – both literally and metaphorically and it was time to get back to an afternoon’s work
We had an early start this morning as the plan was to get out for a hike with the Beaver Scouts and do a bit of bridge building. So we were out of the house at 9:15 to meet up for a 9:30 start. It was a bit of a gray drizzly morning but it wasn’t too wet or cold so every was reasonably happy.
We did the first half of the walk without incident although there were a few wet feet due to somewhat inadequate footwear. However, nothing too bad happened. We all stopped at the usual resting spot, had a bit of a snack and myself and one of the other leaders made up a simple rope-crossing between two trees so that the lads could try out a very basic bridge. That was a bit of fun and we continued on after that.
We decided we had enough time to build a slightly more permanent bridge so we set to and found a few logs to build a bridge across a ditch. The lads were able to help at this and we had a great time at it. We finished this off with a rope tied between trees as a hand-rail and made a nice little crossing
After that, we finished off the walk without too much incident although we did spot a few frogs in one of the streams on the way back which was quite nice for the lads. We finished off crossing the stile I built back in the summer. I must add a couple more of these throughout the forest. This picture was taken earlier in the week on a slightly less grey day.
It was a lovely day for a ramble so I got myself away from my desk in plenty of time to go for a nice lunchtime ramble. It was a fine day for it so we got ourselves around in about 50 minutes. The frogs were out in force today – there were quite a few about including this guy who I managed to snap hiding under a bit of grass.
Aside from that, there was a very clear view from the top with about 25 – 30 km of visibility. It is quite spectacular up there on a clear day.
Anyway, we had a fine walk with not a lot of extra especially interesting stuff. I did take a few other pictures including this one of the forest path.
There are a few more things starting to come to life now with a few gorse flowers fully out, the frogspawn and some willow catkins making their presence felt. The ground is still very wet but not quite as bad as a few days ago.
I was playing with a new camera today and I think I got some pretty good results with it. I decided it wasn’t such a great idea using my phone as a camera after I dropped it in a puddle last week. Luckily I didn’t break it. Anyway, here is quite a nice shot of the flowering gorse.
I took the short-cut today. This is the view up where I usually come out when I’ve gone off-track.
Further along, I came across this flowering willow which is quite nice.
The weather was a bit drizzly this time but I didn’t get too wet on the walk. It took me about an hour due to various bits of faffing around with the camera.
After a bit of a gap, I finally managed to get out for a walk on Saturday morning which was nice. The dogs were certainly pleased after such a long break. The frogs had certainly been busy during my absence as they had spawned in a few places
It still seems a little early in the year although I guess they know what they are doing. Aside from that, there was’t a lot that had changed over the week.
This looked like an interesting detail on tree bar. Some kind of spore off the moss I guess – I should try and learn a bit more about stuff like this.
Walking forests and trails in the midlands of Ireland
