WALKING WITH NATURE

The hazel has both male and female flowers on each shrub, and the two flowers are quite different. The male flowers are gathered within the long, breeze-blown catkins and these are by far the most prominent. Each catkin is made up of many individual flowers – these are the small green/yellow male flowers which produce the pollen. The hazel is wind pollinated and the pollen from the catkins blows to reach the female flowers which you would never spot unless you looked carefully – they are tiny individual flowers, visible only as red styles protruding from a green bud-like structure on the same branches as the male flowers. Once pollinated in the springtime, the female flowers set to work producing the hazelnuts which ripen in the autumn.

Attingham Park Cedars of Lebanon

A fence leading nowhere. A gate never opened. Thinking about this, my guess is that there was a fence, and the gate led to an area for spoil that came from the excavation of the ponds. The work has now finished and this area is left to naturalise once more.

Carpets of snowdrops in the grounds of Chirk Castle.

The gorse takes precedence.

The birds are very territorial during breeding season, and will fight with other members of their species, as well as other water birds such as ducks and coots, to drive them out of their territory. This bird had chased off quite a few contenders for territory, and I think the exposed white rump was an indication of aggression.