Dartmoor

Frogspawn everywhere on the moor today. Some frogs clearly couldn’t wait to reach water. There is still no spawn in our pond, which is disappointing given that the local frogs were happy to use Lucy’s sandpit when it got filled with rainwater a couple of winters ago. Here are two things I cannot identify. The first…

Lizard

I spent an hour on the moor while it was sunny this morning and almost stumbled on this beautiful lizard. Other signs of spring are plenty of celandines, new leaves of pignut and bluebells coming up in Leigh Lane.

Spring flowers and another alien

Not a great photo, but this may be another alien species, Kontikia ventrolineata, so called because of the stripes running along the midline. Found under an old metal parasol base. There are better photos on this website.       In the woods at Shinners Bridge, lots of dogs mercury, snowdrops, and split open seed capsules…

Mini beasts

I’m still resisting the urge to sweep up leaves and pull up couch grass, to avoid disturbing hibernating hedgehogs and toads, so instead I swept the patio and disturbed smaller things. I’m pretty certain this is an Australian flatworm, which should not be in the UK as it eats our earthworms.     Another flatworm, this…

Hazel

Hazel is putting on a good display at the moment, with the tiny red female flowers clearly visible as well as the yellow catkins.         Creeping comfrey flowering early on Leigh Lane         and some more lichens. These grow on our car:

Ice

  It was cold on the moor this morning but the crevices in walls were full of tiny plants, including new leaves of sheep’s sorrel, navelwort, heath bedstraw, and stonecrop. There were some beautiful ice formations near the Ludbrook, including extruded strands of frost around a fox’s burrow. Gorse and an unseasonal strawberry flower This orange-yellow jelly…

February

I need to learn more about ferns because they are confusingly similar. I got excited that this one was lanceolate spleenwort, which is rare but has a small stronghold in south Devon, but maybe it is common black spleenwort. I thought a key feature might be the opposite pinnae but then noticed that on the other frond…