It started well: a buzzard was being mobbed by a Kestrel above Hopefoot and just before High Carrick farm, a stoat ran across my path and under the road-side bushes. Later, in sight of the ruins of High Shaw bastle, I spent a gentle two hours walking in a small mixed wood I've not visited before. Here I heard my first Willow Warbler of the year, watched six Redpolls feeding in a dense thicket, noted a number of Peacock butterflies and watched bees feeding on Pussy Willow catkins.
I am grateful to both Harold Dobson and Phil Gates for making suggestions as to the identity of the following catkins. Harold thought they were Alder (Alnus glutinosa) and Phil suggested Hazel (Corylus avellana)(see Phil's comment below)
On a nearby tree I found this common lichen, Yellow Scales (Xanthoria parietina) ...
... and on the upstanding roots of a wind-blown pine, this moss which I think is Ceratodon purpureus
Of the birds seen, this male Chaffinch was the most obliging ...
