A spring woodland trip

A forecast of heavy overnight rain with clearing skies, negligible wind and the chance of mist, was the inspiration to set the alarm clock for a dawn outing. A bluebell wood recced on an evening visit a few days before would be the destination.

Wild boar foraging

Entering the wood just before sunrise and it became apparent that a) there was no ground mist, nor indeed any other type of mist and b) a sounder of wild boar had descended en masse to forage in the bluebell carpet in the area of wood that I wanted to photograph. Sigh. There were no signs of leaves or flower stalks sans bulbs, the boar seemed interested in something else and the bluebells collateral damage. Taking stock of the situation and the overnight rain had enlivened the mosses, wetted the leaf litter and the wind was negligible, so Plan B would be a visit to a scowles woodland 10 minutes drive away and hopefully the flora would be in flower.

Ramsons carpet

On the drive to the scowles wood I passed by patches of ground mist on fields and on the walk in there was a ground mist in the meadow adjacent to the wood. No mist in the wood though and reinforcing my view that woods have their own microclimate. Nevertheless there was some nice mist filtered light over a ramsons carpet and also deeper into the wood.

The Ransoms whilst in full flower at the wood edges were only beginning to flower in some parts of the wood where beech trees had leaf flushed well before the other canopy trees of lime and ash.

In the scowles where yew forms the understorey then it's the domain of bryophyte communities and just a few vascular plants.

It did appear to my eyes that where a canopy gap allowed morning sunlight onto the woodland floor there was a noticeable increase in woodland plants.

The light all too quickly became too harsh for effective photography and the remainder was spent investigating the wood for less common plants and enjoying the chorus of bird song.