Day 62

I’ve been away on holiday so this is my first walk in a couple of weeks and quite a lot has changed. The heather is finally properly in flower. Despite extremely heavy rain over the weekend, it is still quite dry up there.

I went straight up after getting the dogs out of kennels and they were two happy dogs. They always enjoy a run out but as they had been cooped up for two weeks, they especially enjoyed it today.

The main difference of today’s walk is that the mushrooms have made their annual appearance and I managed to get a couple of pictures.

These tiny ones end up covering a lot of the forest floor later in the year. I really wish I knew a bit more about mushrooms as I’m sure some of them are delicious but I would rather not take the chance with my lack of knowledge.

I found this rather striking red one growing on the path in our field at the edge of the forest.

So that’s about it for this walk. Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of it over the next few days – I’m getting really close to two-thirds of my goal which is just as well as the

Day 61

I’m posting this a couple of days late just as I’m being a bit lazy. I delayed my normal lunchtime walk for a work from home day until the evening as I wasn’t really feeling like it at lunchtime. It was quite a muggy evening but everything was quite dry – no gaiter weather. Our thistle is getting a bit past its best but it’s neighbour has now flowered

Things are changing so fast at this stage – some of blackberries have berries forming and are well past the flowering stage, while others are still flowering.

Further on, a few of the bilberries are developing nicely but they don’t seem to have done very well this year – there are very few. Ardagh mountain isn’t really quite high enough for bilberries to thrive but the do make quite a tasty little snack for late summer walks.

It is funny how you take time to find things out when your children ask you, but I had myself wondered since I was a child what “cuckoo-spit” was. It is fairly abundant at this time of year although is isn’t too prevalent later in the day. Anyway, I looked it up and discovered it is a defence mechanism of the Froghopper nymph. The secret the foam and then hide from predators inside the foamy mass while living off plant sap. So that’s that mystery solved.

Day 60

There was time for a quick walk when I got home from work so I went out even though the sky was looking a bit ominous. Sure enough it started drizzling as I was going up the lane and it was really tipping it down by the time I got into the forest.

As a result I didn’t take many pictures due to being worried about my camera getting wet. My thistle had made a full emergence by how though so I did get a shot of it.

It was all a bit of a mad scramble due to the rain but I would think I was close to a record time. We all got rightly soaked and were happy to make it home

Day 59

Another fine lunchtime and I managed to get out for a walk. It was a fine clear day and things were still pretty dry up there. Visibility was clear to the horizon. We were up on one of those other hills at the weekend at Uisneach but unfortunately it was too wet and misty to be able to look back.

Our thistle is still making progress but it is getting a bit more difficult to take a clear picture of it, especially when you have a dog pulling at you eager to get on with her walk.

We continued tramping round at a reasonably good pace with not a lot else going on. I did spot this rather pretty little orange flower growing in the gravel path. No idea what it is.

After that it was back into the covered tracks until we spotted a wasps’ nest about 5 minutes from the end.  There seems to be a lot of wasps about this summer for some reason. We have something in our bottom field that is rooting them out – probably a badger.

So all-in-all that was quite an interesting little walk between our flower and the wasps nest.

Day 58

I managed to get out for a quick walk on a showery Saturday afternoon. Luckily enough I did manage to dodge the showers so had a nice stroll. The elder-flower is in full bloom by now and looking quite nice. Indeed some of the trees have finished up already.

The thistles haven’t progressed much but there is a bit of difference about them. I have got some pictures of some others a bit further one but I’ll refrain from posting them unless I miss the same stage on this one.

The dogs had a nice time – they always love getting up the forest.

The visibility was very good today.

That’s about it for this post. I had a grand if uneventful walk.

Day 57

For the first trip of the day, it was a normal lunchtime walk around the longer of the two loops. It had clouded over since yesterday but I couldn’t really complain about the weather. The first thing of note was the thistle from yesterday where I thought I’d take another picture to show its progress. Not a lot really had changed. Hopefully I’ll get around once more before the weekend to see some progress.

After that I continued on around to the half-way point which is where I usually release the hounds once I’m well clear of the road. You can see from this face why I don’t like them being free near the road.

It was so dry the last couple of walks that I was able to go through the wettest part of the whole walk. In the winter there can be 30 cm of water at this point but right now it is fairly dry if still a bit muddy. It can be negotiated by keeping to the edge rather than taking the usual short detour.

Anyway, that’s about it. The Ragworths are starting to come into flower now – these are considered a serious pest in open fields but in the forest they are an important moth habitat apparently. I think they are at least a couple of weeks early this year as they don’t normally make an appearance until late July normally.

Day 56

As I was home early and it is summer holidays, we all went for a walk this evening. The fine weather returned after a short break so it was a fabulous hot evening. The group up the forest is almost completely dried out now and it makes for a much more comfortable walking experience.

The view from the top was a little hazy and there wasn’t much new of interesting. I shot this thistle head on the verge of bursting into flower – they really are a fantastic thing.

We continued around the loop without much of note happening. The poor old tadpoles are really struggling at this stage and could seriously do with a bit of rain. The foxgloves which have been fabulous this year are beginning to look a bit the worse for wear.

The light in the forest in the evening is quite stunning at this time of year. I must try to get up a bit later some evening as I should think it would be even better.

It was nice to get out for a walk after a day in the city. I’ve been slowing down a bit over the last couple of weeks and need to get back in the swing of things.

Day 55

The weather broke this morning so it was a bit of shock to be back to the usual dull overcast weather. There was a bit of drizzle when I went out but nothing bad enough to mandate a rain-coat. The views from the top were a lot duller than yesterday but at least I was relatively dry.

At the top of the walk, I noticed that a pine tree had fresh green cones developing which I thought quite interesting. The really odd thing (to me) is that the same tree had flowers, mature cones and green cones so they obviously don’t all develop at the same time.

I continued on with the dogs towing me along feeling quite smug that I had remembered to put on my gaiters which I had been leaving behind for the last while. However, they didn’t do me an awful lot of good when confronted with soaking wet knee-high grass. Wet trousers aren’t really avoidable at this time and I suppose that at least it isn’t cold.

Despite the rain, most of the streams down the bottom were still almost bone dry which is a bit hard on the tadpoles. They should get a bit wetter as the rain makes its way down the mountain over the new few days. It was a nice refreshing lunchtime walk and I even got back with a resolution to a couple of work problems which was quite helpful.

Day 54

This was a spur of the moment evening walk so I got my boots on and did a quick lap after work. The weather is still holding out but not quite so hot in the evenings. There were a few new arrivals on the flowering front up there today – I thought this was a nice shot.

Aside from that, the view was as for the most part recently fantastic although a little hazy.

Everywhere is so dry at the moment as it hasn’t really rained in two weeks so we could actually have managed the walk in runners. Even the streams down the bottom have dried up and the poor old tadpoles are reduced to a few muddy puddles.

I spotted this bee on a thistle when I got out into our bottom field but decent shots of bees are possibly a bit beyond my camera. But here goes anyway.

You can sort of see her nectar sacs on this one.

So I got a nice walk in for a work evening and I should get out again tomorrow as I am planning on working from home.