Day 32

I haven’t managed to get out much this week but after a fairly manic week, I did manage a sunday stroll. The weather is taking a turn for the better and so although it was a bit windy, it was a fine spring day for it. On the way up the hill, we came across this which had rather spectacularly burst into flower. At bit of internet searching revealed that it is probably a Barberry which produces a fruit that can be used for making jam. So I’ll need to keep an eye out for that later in the year.

The forest is so alive at this time of year. The paths are rapidly drying out and the entire place just rings with birdsong. Today, we also saw the wood sorrel coming into flower.

Most importantly, the bilberries have flowered as well. These are a real staple of the mid-summer. There is nothing like a forest walk fuelled by the occasional foraged bilberry. Ardagh woods aren’t quite high enough for the bilberries to really flourish but they do well enough for a bit of a picking. Anyway, that is all to look forward to in a couple of months.

Anyway, we had a nice gentle walk. I’m hoping to get one or two more walks in before the next stage of my canal epic which I have planned for next Friday. It would be good to have hit the third-way point a couple of weeks early.

Day 31

The signs of spring are really about with the blackthorn coming into flower and all kinds of things springing to life. Everywhere you look there’s birds carrying bits of twigs. We had a bit of a frost this week but there is a definite sense of it being the last of it.

The wood-sorrel is also starting to spread quite nicely. This makes a really nice addition to spring salads so I should be able to start foraging a bit quite soon. The only problem is that it really doesn’t keep.

We had a fine day for it. It is still just a little cold, but my rain jacket stayed in my bag for the duration.  I didn’t really bother me. A few of the hardier trees are coming into leaves. This is one of the willows at the bottom of the garden starting to look quite lively.

It was a grand lunchtime walk and we got around  in well under an hour. I feel that winter has one last kick left in it but we’ll see.

Day 30

I’ve been meaning to get up in time for the dawn chorus for a while but as my planned walk for tomorrow has been hijacked by the guides, I decided to go out this morning while it was still peaceful. I got out of the house by 6:30 while it was still half-light and the festivities were in full swing.

I took a couple of videos mainly for the audio to get a sense of the sounds but of course it didn’t really work particularly well. It might have been better if I’d stopped for a couple of minutes so that I wasn’t breathing so heavily.

It was a lovely walk surrounded by song although the dawn chorus proper died down around 7 unfortunately. Still it was a very peaceful experience to be up on the mountain so early while everyone else was still in bed. It was getting a bit quieter in the forest but not so much that it wasn’t still impressive. It might have been even more peaceful without two mad dogs

This is one of the dogs in the weird half natural half flash light inside the forest at 7 AM. She had a nice time of it anyway;.

Day 29

Continuing on the theme from the last walk, it was seriously wet today at lunchtime when it was time to head out. I’ve given up being bothered with the weather so I put on my raincoat, got the dogs and headed off.

It was really just a question of getting the head down for a quick march for exercise with not a lot of note to experience. Still, any walk is better than no walk. We had a nice chat on the trip round.

This is the turn-off the last stretch home. If you don’t take this turn you end up coming out on a local road and adding a 2 km road walk to the loop which is none too pleasant.

The flooded track looking quite misty and drab. This section rarely dries out completely and even if it does we have established a track around it so we wouldn’t bother with even then.

Day 28

By the time I got back from my morning’s activities the day had gone a bit nasty but as it wasn’t actually pouring rain, we decided to go for a walk anyway despite the protest of children. It wasn’t really a day for photography with heavy mist and generally not much to see.

We had some of the children’s friends over for the walk. The boys had a whale of a time but the girls were a bit subdued especially after one of them fell into a ditch. We made good time on the loop round but there wasn’t really a lot of interest to report given the various crashing noises that were being made by the children.

It is nice to walk with others as a counterpoint to being alone in the forest but it is a very different experience to the solitude from doing it with just the day. Neither is better or worse, just different.

Day 27

Another quick lunchtime ramble today using the slightly shorter route as I was a bit late getting out. The weather was a bit of a mixed bag. There were blue patches in the sky but it was really doing its best to rain. I didn’t get a drenching but there were a couple of short showers on the trip around.

I liked the monochrome treatment for some of the textures on my last post so I’ve tried flattening out some of the more drab scenes to see how that works out on this. Hopefully we won’t be seeing trees like this for a lot longer.

Some strange things go on in the woods. Last week, I met a man with a wheelbarrow taking away leaf mulch which he reckons makes an excellent garden fertilizer. I was wondering why some of the path had been cleared up into piles. Anyway, this is evidence of some more nefarious activity. These cable reels and some related discarded insulation have been in the forest for several years.

The heather is getting into full flower at this point. As it was a bit windy, I found it difficult to manage a good close-up. This is as good as it gets I’m afraid

This past autumn have been the most amazing for mushrooms but there wasn’t much to see after Christmas so I’ve not really had anything to post on this blog since that’s when I started. I spotted these somewhat sad remnants today.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about mushrooms so I wouldn’t chance picking any. So that’s another ramble over and I got back to work for the afternoon with my head straightened out. After my big walk last week the forest does seem slightly mundane but I’m getting back into the swing of it.

Day 26

After my exertions on Friday, I gave it a miss yesterday, but today I was back in the saddle so to speak. I had a bit of a cramp in one leg but I was hoping to walk it out. It was a typical late March day, fierce showers followed by spells of sunshine and we managed to pick a nice hour for it. We even had blue skies and sunshine on this walk.

The tadpoles are doing well and are starting to make a bit of progress. A few of them were wriggling about but mostly still inside their jelly.

There are fantastic textures and patterns in the the small details of forest life and I thought I’d have a bit of a play with the camera settings. This is an ivy leaf that has obviously made somebody a nice lunch.

Here is some detail on a tree trunk.

A close-up of some moss

Some more details of moss and bark

I love the pattern here

It wasn’t a terribly peaceful walk with four children along with us but I’d probably had enough of peace and quiet from my long walk to last me a couple of weeks. I’m planning on trying to do some more chunks of the Royal Canal over the rest of the year with an goal of having the whole lot walked by this time next year. But for now and for the next few walks, it is back to normality.