Some photos from Silverwood

Here's a few photos I took at Silverwood last week.

Gorse in flower

Summer is really getting into full swing now, with pretty much everything in flower. The spring flowers are over with; bluebells, celandine and forget-me-nots have given way to poppies, dog rose and, well, bracken.

The birds are still singing, and the trees hum with the sound of blue and great tit families moving through, looking for food to feed their newly-fledged young. Skylarks still sing their bubbling song from high up in the sky, and wrens throw their trilling song out of bushes as you walk past.

I found the egg shells above on the ground, just out of the long grass. It's likely they came from the nest of a ground-nesting bird such as a pipit or skylark, but I'm no expert. Speaking of meadow pipits:

My first mipit. Very happy

Mipit

I caught up with the swan family on the lake: the eggs have hatched and it seems they have five cygnets at the moment. They were at the far end of the lake and I could only get a rubbish photo of them, but I will be visiting again this week to see how they are faring:

Plenty of this about at the moment:

Cuckoo spit

And several of these. I was under the false impression that fungi only appeared in autumn, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled from now on:

I also found one of these: a lesser-spotted Sybil.