Dippers & Elf Cups

After over 15mm rain in the past twenty-four hours the Golspie Burn is running high, inundating most of the boulders from which....

....the pair of dippers have been conducting their courtship. 

We see them almost every time we cross the footbridge, with one of them....

.... I suspect the male, very anxious to draw the other's attention to the moss-covered retaining wall on the left bank of the burn. Perhaps he's suggesting that one of the holes in the wall might be a suitable place for a nest - which would be great as we could then watch the family grow.

To add to the weather's misery there's a strong breeze blowing today so a walk through the forestry was both slippery and cold - and would have been fairly boring were it not for the scarlet elf cups. We've found two new locations close to the original one,  of which the above picture shows one. Look closely and it's possible to see at least ten of the fruiting bodies which....

added to roughly the same number in the other new location, gives us a total in the region of forty.

The three places where they're growing are, however, within a stone's-throw of each other: what I'm anxious to find now is another 'colony' some distance from this one.

Other than the dippers and the elf cups, there's precious little of interest in the forestry but also plenty of signs - like bulbs sprouting - of spring just waiting to happen. Unfortunately, this cold spell is due to last for some days yet.