A Walk on the Estate

It's a wonderful time of year to be out in the countryside, with a late spring causing the animals and plants to hurry into action, spurred on now by some fine, if not yet very warm weather. Just a walk along one of the forest tracks through the Sutherland Estate land produces plenty of interest.

There are still remarkably few butterflies on the wing. This is a green-veined white soaking up the sun on a frond of bracken.

The birds too are playing catch-up. As well as the hoards of young hopping around in our garden, on our walks we see them in their proper habitat: this is a young dunnock standing on one of the old moss- and lichen-encrusted stone walls on the estate.

Amongst all this mass of life I do have my favourites, and this is one. It's common butterwort which favours damp conditions where insects are tempted onto its leaves by the sticky fluid it excretes; once trapped, the leaves slowly curl round the insect and digest it.

By contrast, I shouldn't like this flower, blood-drop emlets, as it is native to North America and has escaped into the wild, but I can't help but be attracted to its warm colours.

There is so, so much to see and learn. I had no idea what this was, a deciduous tree with what looked like pine cones, but a little research enlightened me: it's alder, perhaps Italian alder, one of the wide variety of trees on the estate which, at one time, must have had gardeners dedicated to the acres of forestry.