I’ve seen robins and wrens fighting about territory, magpies chasing each other and this jay bathing.
Archive for March, 2010
The birds are more active.
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Spring flowers making themselves known.
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
It is definitely spring now. The variety of flowers about is increasing every day. I hope the cold and windy weather forecast this week is not about to flatten them or cause too many problems for the bumble bees that are feeding on them.
A different style of tree surgery.
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Abney veteran trees that have become unbalanced by loss of their tops, or a one-sided branches, need to be made less lopsided by cutting back the other growth. The cut ends of the branches usually announce themselves by a blatant smooth cut. Abney is trying out a cut end that looks more like storm damage.
Green Woodpecker, 21.3.2010.
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »
My Sunday walk was full of the sound of a green woodpecker. It was way up in the trees so I couldn’t get a good photo, but it is such a distinctive call, like laughter, it was impossible to miss. This is the closest I got to it….
It is in there in the middle of the shot somewhere.
The other thing that caught my attention was a group of very young Glistening Inkcaps, Coprinellus micaceus.
The daffodils are beginning to come out more. There is a long way to go for a full spring display still.
The First Daffodils
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Most daffodils are still coming into bud, but these 2 are out early.
Most of Abney 
is still untouched
by the new season.
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Spring not here yet….
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »
It still feel very gray as if waiting for spring to start but small signs are there that change is coming.
First inkcap of the year, Coprinopsis spelaiophila.
Posted in Fungus growth 2010 on March 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »
I had been told for a while by Russell Miller, that C. spelaiophila was growing in the old hollow trees. It is very rarely reported but apparently widespread according to the Basidiomycota British and Irish Checklist . I found it before in the hollow of a cut section of poplar trunk. This time I followed Russell’s directions and eventually found it, high up in the hollow of a veteran ash tree and, with the help of someone taller, managed to get it home for examination. Perhaps it is rarely reported as it grows inside hollow trees and not easily found?
March begins quietly….
Posted in Abney Park latest changes. on March 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The sun came out and the clear side lit trees have a special beauty.
The crocus flowers are starting to show, but not all of them, not yet. Snowdrops in different forms are still appearing. The winter heliotrope, or butterbur, is still going strong now unbent by the recent weight of snow or the battering rain and wind.
The Winter Flowering
Heliotrope
(or Butterbur) Patch.
Abney Fungi 
