Much of the early part of our usual walk through the woods to the village is through mature Scots pine plantation, the forest floor now almost totally invaded by bracken. Despite this, on this morning's walk we found....
....a patch of chanterelle fungi. Normally, one would notice them and pass on but at the moment there is hardly a fungus growing in the area due to an almost total lack of serious rainfall over the last few weeks, so the plantation floor is very dry.
Just beyond the fungi, and still in the plantation, we almost trod on....
....what I think was a wood mouse - also called a field mouse. Since it was in the middle of a mountain bike track we persuaded it to move away into the undergrowth.
From the pines our path enters Speckled Wood, so called because, in normal times, it is an ideal home for a large population of speckled wood butterflies - but times are not normal, and we hadn't seen a butterfly here from some weeks.
Happily, that changed....
....for we found a good dozen of these very understated butterflies on the wing, mostly chasing each other - I assume to catch up on what must be a very late breeding season.
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