Dry and warm

A high pressure weather system has been lurking to the south of Ireland for a few days, bringing some dry and warm weather. This morning was bright and warm, so I dashed off to a likely spot to see what I could find. An inspection of the stream bank revealed hundreds of Lesser Celandines in bud, and a single flower which is - to all intents and purposes - open:

Lesser Celandine

And right beside it, a single specimen of Creeping Buttercup in flower:

Creeping Buttercup

A nearby boggy area revealed Ivy-leaved Water Crowfoot in bud:

Ivy-leaved Water Crowfoot in bud

And Brooklime making strong green growth:

Brooklime

Further along the hedgerow I found a couple of specimens of Tubaria furfuracea, which is a Hawthorn associate:

Tubaria furfuracea

And Gorse in flower:

Gorse

Whilst examining a wall for mosses (more of those later) I spotted a few Snowdrops with open flowers:

Snowdrop

Well done to anybody spotting the small fly on the flower sheath!

Mosses are truly beautiful in all their parts, especially when they have sunlight to brighten them up. Yes, they are very small, but if you 'get down to their size', both physically and metaphorically, you will find beauty that is almost beyond belief.

This shot shows three specimens of Tortula muralis:

Tortula muralis

Here's a close-up of the maturing spore capsules:

Capsules of Tortula muralis

I'm convinced those setae (the 'stalks' of the capsules) are light pipes that transfer light directly down into the dark parts of the mosses.

Grimmia pulvinata has globular capsules that never emerge much beyond the leaf tips:

Grimmia pulvinata, showing hidden capsules

Bryum capillare has 'nodding head' capsules on long setae:

Bryum capillare capsules

Is this really early January, or did I miss a couple of months?

Light and dark

I went up to the Celandine area, but the buds were still closed. I did, however, find a few open specimens of Coltsfoot:

Coltsfoot

Coltsfoot is quite interesting in a couple of ways:

1) The flowers always appear before the leaves
2) The stems have a fine cobwebby covering which tightens and stretches to alter the attitude of the flowerhead and seedhead as the season progresses.

Gorse has also come back into flower:

Gorse flowers

At this point, the rain became much heavier and the next Gorse shot has a very interesting background:

Gorse in heavy rain

Damaged parts of leaves attract me like a magnet: they usually indicate a fungal influence or signs of something feeding . This Common Polypody had a single leaflet that was clearly eaten:

Polypodium with feeding signs

I flipped it over and immediately saw that a micromoth had been eating the spores and had made its pupation case from the leftovers:

Pupation case of micromoth

The pupation case is the large cluster of sori just below centre.

Only one micromoth  - Psychoides filicivora - has been recorded from Polypody, so I rather suspect this is the beast we have here.

Spring?

The daytime weather has been wonderful recently, although it's still -4 at night. I took a quick run up to the hedgerow and found Gorse in flower:


And also a single daisy:


There's hope, you know.