April in West Cork

On one of the first beautiful, sunny and warm days this year I made a walk at Lough Hyne and the forest that overlooks this salt water lake. At the lake it was very busy with swimmers and kayakers enjoying their Sunday morning. Folks have been soo browned off with all the rain we have been getting, so there was a pretty happy atmosphere all round.

I met by chance a friend of mine walking her little dog, and it was lovely catching up with her. After a while I started on my walk up the hill as I wanted to check the wild plants and the trees. It was an ideal day for it, the sun showed the bright yellow green of the emerging sycamore leaves beautifully, while underground there was a multitude of interesting wild plants and flowers.

It is of great interest to me lately of what is growing underneath trees as my garden is slowly becoming a forest garden due to our tree canopies growing larger and lager.

I’m quite interested in what is happening to the trees at the moment seeing it’s Spring time. I finally enrolled in an online course on woodland trees id. Trees in the different seasons are discussed and giving all the information to identify them in order to look up a whole lot more information about them. Encouraging nature connectedness and awareness of forest ecology. Looks like it’s going to be very interesting, especially coupled with enjoyable forest walks for practical identification.

Even the bumblebees were delighted with such a sunny beautiful day, and of course they were hungry too!

This misty Sunday afternoon was a good time for a walk in Myross wood. I’d been to the plant sale there and after picking some new plants for the garden, and a cup of tea that is just what I did. The birds were singing and there was a wealth of new life, flowers and plants, young leaves on the trees as well. I found plenty of beautiful mosses and lichens, also some fungi. As it has been rather wet the last week the woods were full of moisture and many of the plants had rain or mist drops dripping off them. An ideal way to see the forest, beautiful and calm, no wind. There were few other walkers. I could hear the brook from afar adding to an overall feel of dampness which in fact did not disturb me, rather it gave me a refreshing feeling. April in West Cork can be a nice month, still chilly at times but when the sun comes through it gives all of its warmth at once, a very nice feeling that is. Often the month of May is already our summer with temperature going over 20degrees Celsius. But seeing that it is still April the days can be unpredictable, today was misty and windstill, very quiet. The detail that is to be found on the forest floor among some of last autumn’s leaves is amazing, all the new life, so fresh and delicate, beautiful and interesting too. I found plenty of that today. The many photos that I took of the lichen I’ll be showing in another blog post, I simply love lichen and mosses too. Meanwhile enjoy what follows today and thank you for visiting.