Larch Rose

A lovely walk out to Smardale Gill nature reserve today - one of our favourites. In the back of the car Pushka made little whimpering noises of excitement as we got closer & even started to howl as we parked up. We've never gotten to the bottom of why she likes it here so much but its certainly makes her happy.

Everywhere the explosion of Spring continues - I think we're probably a little behind a lot of the country due to altitude and cold weather, but its lovely to see. I was torn between a blip of the fabulous willow catkins or  one of these fine larch roses (the female flowering cones on the Larch Tree - Larix Ducidea - the yellow cone pointing downwards is the male) - but chose these as they are are often hard to spot up in the canopy - conveniently this tree was covered in them. This was the most colourful of the shots to come out.