A little boring

There has been a complete change in the weather, and I have been feeling rather under it. Nesh is the word used in the Welsh borders where I was brought up. It means shivery and feeble, often applied at this time of year to sickly lambs brought into the kitchen to keep warm.

So Casey and I didn't go far, just down into the woods where the sequence of early spring flowers includes primroses and violets, wood anemone and wood sorrel, golden saxifrage and dog's mercury and the first of the marsh marigolds. For me it's like greeting old friends who have been away but whose faces are always familiar and welcome to the eyes when they re-appear.

I took a few shots of the usual lichens and fungi and trees and plants. I decided to use this one which shows the curious patterns made by leaf-boring or mining insects. Since these are blackberry leaves the tunnels are most likely to be caused by the larvae of a tiny moth with the mellifluous name of Stimella aurella. The adult female lays an egg at the point where the thin end of the tunnel begins and as the larva eats its way through the interior of the leaf it gains in size until the final point at which it pupates. I think that's all there is to say about it without boring.