Blooming and blossoming
Nature showing off in all its early beauty
This past week has been full of sun, blue skies, and clear night skies, and nature responds with this incredible spring flourish that lifts the spirit every year.
A walk to the lake led me towards the area where there is normally a sprawl of yellow anemones, but there were fewer this year — still, they are beautiful, although not as profuse as the blue ones.
In the wooded area above the lake, the Allium ursinum are out in force. The name refers to bears, of course, as the Romans noticed that brown bears in the woodlands of the Carpathian Mountains loved them. Cows like them, too, but beware, the milk will taste of garlic. The plant is a wild relative of both onions and garlic, and it is not one of my favourites. There are heaps of recipes circulating right now for pestos and salads with cowleek, but however eco-friendly I would like to be, this is definitely not for me — the fresh white flowers are pretty, though.
Everywhere around the lake, the blackthorns are now in full bloom and lower down are the willow bushes with all their catkins now open. It has taken just a week for them to open up.
The great crested grebes are busy close to the reeds at the western end of the lake, and now the swans have arrived, as well. Wonder if this one is prospecting?
Together with the swans and great crested grebes, the mallards and the coots are busy nesting, guarding their nesting areas, often with quite noisy results. The gulls are everywhere, so far still courting, if one can call it that, and the noise will only increase as the young ones start their flying lessons … believe it or not, but the gulls have become quite a problem since the mink farms in the north of the country were closed down during the Covid crisis.
On the way back, I passed under a huge blackthorn in bloom, and with a slight wind, it felt like snowflakes falling in abundance around me.
At a parking lot on my way to the baker’s, I came across this elm tree, Ulmus glabra, with a crown of green flowers. The light green colour is so uplifting — in a couple of weeks, the flowers will be replaced by the darker green leaves, and pigeons and blackbirds will be busy picking the dry flowers or ‘manna’ to eat the little seeds inside.
I caught these rooks against the sunset — not my favourite bird, and now a new colony has developed in trees about six streets from where I live. Rooks are noisy, very noisy. The colony started about three weeks ago with seven or eight big nests — now there are twenty-five … I pity those who live across from the colony.
The sunsets have been spectacular this past week, with the sun setting around 8.30 pm, and Venus is still clear on the western sky at sunset. The sun rises around 5.30 am, and the days will continue to lengthen for another two months. The sunset is now to the northwest and will continue moving towards true north around summer solstice. Long days and short nights, but still time to watch big Leo dipping towards the north in the middle of a clear night.
Enjoy your weekend.
