Wood Anemone time again...

The weather turned out to be rather better than the forecast, with plenty of morning sunshine., so I headed out early to Old Sulehay. I seem to visit weekly at the moment, but it's one of the few local sites that never gets too busy at the weekends, and is not too choked with mud.

The woodland flowers have progressed a lot in the last week, and there were plenty of Wood Anemone, although not yet the sheets seen in some previous years. Early Dog-violet, Primrose and Lesser Celandine were all looking lovely, and I managed to find several spikes of the rather weird parasitic Toothwort at the base of Hazel coppice stools.

I had several conversations on my way round - I think so many people are rather starved of human company just now. The best encounter was just as I was going into the wood, where I saw a group of four people peering at a Spurge-laurel shrub. As I approached they said 'I don't suppose you're a botanist, are you?' and were extremely surprised when I said 'Yes, actually I am!'  Once I'd identified the source of their confusion, we had a lovely chat about plants to look out for, and when we finally parted they told me I'd made their day, which was lovely!