Photo Blog

I love observing nature through the changing seasons both in my Norfolk wildlife garden and the surrounding countryside. I blog about wildlife gardening as well as about Norfolk butterflies, wildflowers and other flora and fauna that I come across. Bookmark my Norfolk nature photo blog to keep up to date with my photographic adventures.

And Breathe... Spring is here!

Just when you think you really can’t take it any more, finally the temperatures drift up, the first Blackthorn blossom appears in the hedgerows on still naked stems and you know that Spring, at long last, is here.

Springtime in der Eifel

Spring has well and truly sprung with a couple of weeks of glorious weather in the UK and the continent. Here a small selection from a short trip to the beautiful Eifel Nationalpark on the German-Belgian border, with lush meadows dripping in springtime wildflowers and vivid dappled green woodland trails bursting with life...

New season's foliage in deciduous woodland on the slopes

Apple tree blossom on a hot sunny circular walk around a 45 thousand year old Meerfelder Maar - a volcanic crater and lake or "Maar".

Wildflowers and butterflies were very similar to those in the UK with cuckoo flower, dandelions, stitchwort and marsh marigolds and dandelions in the downland meadows.

An enticing dappled woodland trail on the Lieserpfad hiking route

Spring Orchids

Green-winged Orchid

Early Purple Orchid

The arrival of May means we are entering late springtime, augering the arrival of warm days and our early orchids. Here are two you can see readily in Norfolk, the Early Purple Orchid (orchis mascula) that can be seen in ancient woodland where it is often a companion plant to bluebells, and the very small Green-Winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio), a later flowering orchid happiest in open unimproved grassland. 

After the whites greens and yellows of early spring now pinker palette emerges among our countryside wildflowers. Amongst others, both the pretty red campion (silene dioica) and herb robert (geranium robertianum), one of several elegant native geranium species, come into bloom during in the month and if you're lucky, you might even see an early poppy.

Lush Springtime

For me, springtime is as much about the pure whites and lush greens, the fresh background colour palette against which the more vivid yellows, pinks and lilacs that pretty spring wildflowers display their wares to early pollinating insects. At this time of year the woodland floor becomes a pastel mosaic of early spring wildflowers such as greater stitchwort, water avens as well as bluebells and campions all in a mad dash to flower and seed before the renewed tree canopy shades their light for the summer season until autumn leaf-fall arrives.

 

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