Awakenings

The SSSI at Sychpant in the Gwaun valley is rich in animal and plant species. Just now everything is waking up incrementally rather like a dormitory of sleepers who rouse at different times. The white blossom of blackthorn and the yellow gorse were out weeks ago while bluebells and oak leaves are only just stirring.

There is so much to see here. My eyes were skittering from the ground to the sky where buzzards and ravens scan for carrion.The steep valley creates a damp, sheltered microclimate and the pure air is especially conducive to lichens. I was excited to find a  leafy, gelatinous kind that I haven't been able to identify, frilled around a birch trunk (final extra). Many of the trees are padded with bright viridian  moss like velvet upholstery. Higher up there are ancient ant hills that look like big green doughnuts planted on the short grass. Extra pics of these as well as a 'pure wool' fox poo,  a bracket fungus black as anthracite, and a patch of delicate wood sorrel flowers that will be gone before others have sprung into life.