A Woodland Walk Near Llanfarian.

The other day I was bemoaning the fact that I don't wake up early enough to see the sun rise but even though it was a pretty dawn this morning all I did was feed the cat, take a photo and my tablets and go back to sleep. After all it was only 5.30.

When I did emerge to start the day properly we had a bit of a drama. Let me set the scene- I looked out to the terrace and there was Speedy frozen in stalking mode. A couple of feet away from Speedy a male blackbird was lying on its back twitching and feebly waving its legs in the air. I burst through the door shouting at Speedy who promptly shot off down the steps in pursuit of Big Ginge the cat from up the road. In Speedy's defence if he had been the one to bring down the blackbird I would have expected him to have it firmly in his mouth as he knows from the few occasions he's caught something, that I will do my very best to take it from him. With both cats out of sight I picked up the blackbird and placed it in a box which I then put in a quiet room either to die in peace or to make a recovery. And both surprisingly and happily it did. When I checked on it an hour or so later it was standing up looking for a way out. I should have checked its wings before releasing it as when I took it back to the garden it scuttled off rather than taking to the air but I did see it holding both wings out. It ran under the bushes where a little later it was chased by a pair of blackbirds. It was out of my reach but finally went upwards into the hedge where I hope it was able to fully recover from its ordeal.

Todays walk of just over 4 miles was from the village of Llanfarian a few miles south of Aber. It was in two parts, the beginning and end of the walk were through a wooded valley above a narrow stream.

It was an overcast day so the flowers weren't sparkling in the sun but in every direction a carpet of spring flowers covered the woodland floor.

Mainly yellow celandines and bluebells interspersed with stitchwort and wood anemones with the occasional primrose, dandelion or wood violet. 

When we walked this path two years ago the wood anemones were at their best and as far as the eye could see the ground looked as if cherry trees had been shedding their blossom but today the wood anemones were confined to smaller patches with the celandines being the stars of the show.

As well as all the flowers we came across a big patch of young gooseberry bushes and a little further on a patch of young blackcurrant bushes. We wondered if there had once been a farmhouse garden there or perhaps the seeds had been deposited by a greedy bird?

While wood anemones are mainly white occasionally we came across some pink ones.

Less pretty but quite interesting was the fungus King Alfred's Cake found on some dead wood. They can remain in place for years and really do look like very charred buns.

We had a pretty sunset tonight which hopefully means we shall have another dry day tomorrow.