A Tree-Spotter's Guide to Flowers: 3

Sloe (blackthorn) blossom is produced before any leaves appear, often in such profusion that whole hedgerows can look as though they're covered in snow.

Wild cherry (gean) blossom - clusters of large flowers set against expanding foliage that has a bronze tint when it's young.

Male ash flowers. Ash trees flower long before their leaves expand - this is usually the last tree species to come into leaf, in May. There are three basic kinds of ash tree. All-male trees like this produce dense clusters of crimson pollen-producing anthers when their flower buds burst. All-male trees never produce ash 'keys' in autumn.

 Female trees produce clusters of flowers with bright red stigmas and styles - the style will later develop into the wing of the ash 'key'. Female trees produce heavy crops of  'keys' in autumn.






















Close-up of female ash flowers. There are also hermaphrodite trees, whose flowers look similar to these female flowers but have a pair of pollen-producing anthers attached on either side of those slender green stalks. They too produce heavy crops of 'keys' in autumn.

Just to complicate matters even further, some trees produce any two of the above three flower types on the same tree i.e. male + female; male + hermaphrodite; female + hermaphrodite.

For more information on trees click here

A Tree-Spotter's Guide to Flowers: 2

Many trees produce their flowers in elongated catkins in spring, often before the foliage expands. Most - but not all - catkin-bearing trees are wind pollinated and produce vast quantities of pollen to ensure that pollination and seed set occurs. Hazel catkins are the most familiar ....

... along with alder catkins. Alder is usually the first tree to flower in spring.

Male catkins of hornbean are smaller than those of most other trees and produced just before the leaf buds open.

Silver birch male catkins are long and slender. The female catkin, seen here just above the leaves, is much smaller and points upwards. It will produce large quantities of seeds in winter, which are important food for finches.

Silver birch tree in full flower, in April.

There are separate male and female trees of goat willow (also known as sallow). This is the female catkin, with large numbers of stigmas. After pollination it'll produce masses of downy seed in early summer. Unlike all the other trees in this post, goat willow is pollinated by insects - flies, bees and butterflies - and both male and female trees are sometimes visited by blue tits that also have a liking for nectar - so this may be the only tree species in Britain that's pollinated by birds.

Male goat willow catkins, beginning to expand their golden stamens.

A male goat willow tree in full flower in late March can light up a hedgerow - and is an important source of nectar and pollen for the first insects that emerge in spring.

Poplar catkins are seldom seen (unless you go tree-spotting with binoculars) because they are produced right at the top of mature trees, but they are often the most attractive flowers of all the wind-pollinated species. They are much stouter that catkins of other trees. The best time to look for them is after a spring gale, when they are often broken off and litter the ground under the tree.

For more information about trees click here

Early Spring in Weardale

For once we managed to get out while there was still dew on the grass and headed up Weardale to St. John's Chapel and Chapel Fell.

Alchemists are said to have believed that the little silvery droplets of water that are secreted around the edge of lady's mantle leaves overnight had magical properties and were an essential ingredient in potions for turning base metals into silver. The Latin generic name for lady's mantle - Alchemilla - means 'little alchemist'.

 

We arrived just as this spider had finished spinning a new web, ready to snare flies warmed into life by the early morning sun. The owner of the web is highlighted by the sun on the twig on the right (double-click for larger image).

When the spider had finished the web it sat on its twig and stretched out a single leg that gripped a fine thread that runs right to the centre of the web (double-click to see this - you can see the spider's leg sticking out at right-angles to the twig, highlighted by the sun). When it catches a fly the vibrations will be transmitted along that signal thread and the spider will race out to impale it with its fangs.

With spiders' webs around it's safest to travel at ground level, like this ground beetle making its way over a carpet of last-year's larch needles.

Up on Chapel Fell some lapwings were already sitting on nests, ever-vigilant for marauding crows.

This coal tit had found a crevice in a stone wall that was just large enough to squeeze through ....

... and made regular trips back-and-forth with moss for lining its nest.
 

Nest sites don't come much more secure than this.

Sallow flowers produce nectar that attracts a wide range of insects, including this pair of peacock butterflies.

Although last winter was the most severe in recent memory, but I can't remember a spring when I've seen so many peacock butterflies. They seem to have hibernated very successfully around here.

This little insect is a water cricket Velia caprai, scooting across the surface film in a pool in one of the pastures in the valley.

Up on the fell tops the sounds of the day were the calls of lapwings and curlews, the drumming of snipe and the sound of sheep bleeting - especially when it was feeding time.

Down in the valley bottom it's lambing time - a proud mother with twin lambs.

It's been the warmest day of the year so far - dawn-to-dusk sunshine - perfect weather for sitting on the grass and having a doze in the afternoon heat.