10 Tuesday Mar 2026
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Today I can finally see the sky again but for the past several days we’ve had nothing but grey foggy damp dismal gloom. I’m generally quite a buoyant person and try always to see the positive in situations but, yesterday, even I was starting to find the constant dreary weather a bit depressing, until I saw this. The big bold golden flowers of Marsh marigold are so beautiful and cheering that a smile instantly formed on my face and my mood improved for the rest of the day, in spite of the gloom.
01 Sunday Mar 2026
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Happy Spring to those of you in the northern hemisphere, and what better way to celebrate the passing of winter than with an iconic spring flower!
Colt’s-foot (Tussilago farfara) is a member of the Asteraceae, the family of daisies and dandelions. It flowers most commonly appear in March and April, though can sometimes be seen as early as January; I spotted these flowers on Thursday, 26 February, which is about usual hereabouts. The colt’s-foot-shaped leaves won’t appear above ground until much later, perhaps in April or May.
After a long wet winter, these little droplets of golden yellow are a very cheering sight when they emerge, and it would be very easy to take just a cursory glance, smile and move one. If you take a moment to look closer though, they are very interesting little plants, with stems covered in white woolly fibres and an abundance of sepals that are a very pale maroon with green stripes up their centres.
The centres of the flowers are surrounded by petals that are fine and delicate but plentiful and, as they age, the flowers develop a soft reddish tinge that looks to my fanciful eye a bit like the colour of a setting sun, though, in this case, on the ground rather than in the sky.
15 Sunday Feb 2026
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
Though we did have a blue-sky day yesterday, it’s been a long, grey, wet winter; earlier this week one Scottish city, Aberdeen, was celebrating seeing the sun after 21 days of its absence! The weather’s not been that dismal here in south Wales but it’s been dreary enough to make the sight of spring flowers even more heartwarming than usual. So, today here’s some multi-coloured flower-power Crocuses to brighten your day!
08 Sunday Jun 2025
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
Tags
Anacamptis pyramidalis, Bee orchid, British orchids, Dactylorhiza maculata, Dactylorhiza praetermissa, Heath spotted-orchid, native orchids, Ophrys apifera, orchids, Pyramidal orchid, Southern marsh orchid, Spring colour, spring orchids
I was searching for adjectives to describe the many native orchids I’ve been seeing during my recent meanders, then decided that you didn’t really need my blathering to see how sublime they are.
Bee orchids (Ophrys apifera), at Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park. Note the unusual markings on the ‘face’ of the orchid on the right – it looks to me to be crying.
Also from Grangemoor Park, a feast of Pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis)
Heath spotted-orchids (Dactylorhiza maculata) from last Wednesday’s visit to Aberbargoed Grasslands NNR
One of just a few Southern marsh orchids (Dactylorhiza praetermissa) growing on the coal spoil tip at Aberbargoed
18 Sunday May 2025
Posted in wildflowers
If only Cardiff Bay had a large thriving area of Kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria), then we might also have a small thriving colony of Small blue butterflies, as this is their larval food plant.
Sadly, the few plants that manage to survive in the Bay are locked away behind a tall barrier of diagonal wire mesh in a tiny patch of waste ground; the fact they’re inaccessible is probably the only reason they’ve survived Cardiff Council’s ‘spray herbicide on everything’ policy of environmental (mis)management. The mesh also means the plants are very much overlooked and under-appreciated, as well as being difficult to photograph, which is a great shame, as Kidney vetch is a very attractive wildflower.
02 Friday May 2025
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Common blue, Common blue butterfly, Dingy Skipper, Large white, Small copper, Spring colour
Just as it’s always magical to see my first butterfly of the year, so is it just as special each time I see the first of each new species. These are the four most recent beauties that have made me smile.
On 25 April my first Large white of 2025 flitted along the footpath next to me, sipped on a Dandelion, then settled on a Bramble leaf long enough for me to photograph.
The next butterfly species to appear for me locally, on 27 April, was this lovely Dingy skipper at an unexpected location – a bonus!
The last few days of hotter than usual temperatures have presumably triggered the early emergence of some species. This stunning male Common blue popped up on 28 April, five days earlier than my previous earliest date.
And, this very morning, eight days earlier than I’ve ever seen one before, I caught a flash of brilliant orange and there sat this gorgeous Small copper, always a treat to see.
27 Sunday Apr 2025
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
I had hoped to get to my local slice of ancient woodland for a walk amongst the native Bluebells this week but it didn’t happen so here are some beautiful non-native but naturalised Bluebells that I’ve encountered in this week’s urban meanders. I hope you all have woodlands near you with Bluebells to enjoy.
06 Sunday Apr 2025
Posted in flowers, spring, wildflowers
‘The Wood anemone’, a poem by John Clare (1793-1864)
The wood anemone through dead oak leaves
And in the thickest woods now blooms anew,
And where the green briar and the bramble weaves
Thick clumps o’green, anemones thicker grew,
And weeping flowers in thousands pearled in dew
People the woods and brakes, hid hollows there,
White, yellow and purple-hued the wide wood through.
What pretty drooping weeping flowers they are:
The clipt-frilled leaves, the slender stalk they bear
On which the drooping flower hangs weeping dew,
How beautiful through April time and May
The woods look, filled with wild anemone;
And every little spinney now looks gay
With flowers mid brushwood and the huge oak tree.
01 Tuesday Apr 2025
Sunday was a brilliant day for butterflies, with my first three Speckled woods of the year, each in a different location, all basking on hedgerows and flitting out to defend their territories as I passed by.
With its rich chocolately brown background colour mixed with small circular dollops of creamy yellow, it’s almost like a living crème egg … or is my imagination just being overly affected by the bombarding of pre-Easter advertisements?
My brilliant guide book, Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, tells me that the Speckled wood was once called the Wood argus, the name Argus coming from the ‘many-eyed shepherd of Greek mythology’. That seems a very apt name for this beautiful creature.
30 Sunday Mar 2025
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be
mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
~ Iris Murdoch, from the novel A Fairly Honourable Defeat, Vintage, 1970
Mad as a hatter, me, as the Spring wildflowers begin to bloom. I hope you’re enjoying them too!
earthstar 
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