SPRING - WE'RE STARTING

 

 

The New Year didn't start off particularly well and somehow it didn't put us in the mood for trips into the countryside.

It took us the entire first quarter to get back to normal – but we're off to a good start 😊

To begin with, we decided to check if spring had arrived for good and went to the Ochotnica Valley.

The group consisted of the usual members: Małgosia, Andrzej Witek, and me – the well-known “geriatric circle.” 

It's strange that I haven't been hit over the head for that term yet.

But – ad rem.

Last year, at about the same time, there were a lot of spring flowers there, and everything was enveloped in the smell of garlic.

Fortunately, to photograph plants, you don't have to build a hide, camouflage yourself, and arrive before dawn😊 

So we arrived “in the morning” because it was already around 10 a.m.😊.

This year – perhaps because of the colder winter – is a little different.

Everything seems a little late compared to previous years.

There are   lots of snowdrops, snowflakes, hellebores beginning to bloom, and a few anemones – apart from that, silence.

The smell of garlic is only noticeable near the ground – which means that the wild garlic season is still ahead of us – which I regret very much because I was hoping for a few leaves for sandwiches

The spring snowflakes are the most striking – certainly because of their color, but also because of their quantity.

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Andrzej Rapak

Snowdrops between them.

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Witek Mazur

And, of course, green hellebores.😊 

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Małgosia Gęgotek-Rapak

Photo: Małgosia Gęgotek-Rapak

Photo: Witek Mazur

As usual, I was most interested in the details, so I focused on showing small fragments of flowers – hellebores and snowdrops.

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Sometimes I am surprised by their structure when I sit down at home to edit photos on my computer.

There were a lot of spiders running around in the leaves – they are fast and constantly on the move, but I managed to get some shots.

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

Photo: Witek Mazur

Andy found a yellow flower – just a small sparkle in a sea of gray and sparse green.

Photo: Andrzej Rapak

Our attention (at least mine) was drawn to a tree trunk with peeling bark.

Photo: Witek Mazur

Witek solved the mystery by informing us that it was a sycamore maple – well, now I know – you learn something new every day. 😜

Małgosia found last year's dead man's fingers – this “devilish” name refers to mushrooms that we are all familiar with. They are Xylaria polymorpha, commonly known as dead man's fingers fungi that decompose dead wood.

Photo: Małgosia Gęgotek-Rapak

Photo: Marek Czubaszek

There were few insects, but there was plenty of trash... yes, plenty of it. 

Mainly beverage bottles, but not only.

 Małgosia among the bottles. Photo: Marek Czubaszek

There were few insects, but there was plenty of trash... yes, plenty of it. Mainly beverage bottles, but not only.

Photo

We bring a bottle of drink to the forest – it weighs about 1.5 kg, and after drinking it, people throw away the packaging, which weighs a few decagrams – it's crazy.

Małgosia suggested that we take bags with us on our trips and collect at least those that interfere with our photos. Maybe it's not much and we won't change the world, but at least we'll have a cleaner forest and a slightly clearer conscience that we're doing something positive

 

Maybe it will become a new tradition.

Witek showed us other species of trees – how to distinguish them – but what caught my attention was the information that one of the species is aspen.

And you know, lying on the ground in the fumes of garlic, I associated it with aspen (I imagined aspen stakes) and it dawned on me that this is not a vampire-friendly area 😊.

 

  Yeah, everything is clear now.

Photo: Marek Czubaszek or as in the captions.