The Dark Woods

I don't like walking in the woods, particularly coniferous plantations. They're dark, dank, oppressive places where, at this time of year, the ground-level plants are still in winter mode, there being precious little in the way of spring flowers to see, the exception being....

....along the edges of the forestry where some of the gorse is in flower, as it has been for much of the winter. In the woods themselves I spotted just one dandelion in bloom. One.

That said, the forestry was, despite a bitingly cold wind, full of the songs of small birds but....

....seeing them, let alone taking a picture of them, was difficult: in this photo there is a very excited male goldcrest but please don't ask me exactly where.

So there had to be something important to draw us in to the unwelcoming environment of these woods and that was, of course....

....the annual return of the ospreys, there being four nests around the shores of Loch Fleet.

From meeting acquaintances on recent walks who have seen them we know that some are back from western Africa. The occupants of this nest, the one that's most accessible to us, have been seen but they weren't at home today, though we thought we heard them calling.

So we'll have to return to the dark woods....