Challenging Habitat Blog

Outdoor Daily III

Flowers first then leaves. A relative of the Winter Heliotrope, Petasites fragrans. Or, as my friend Lizzie calls it ‘pestites…’ it spreads!

Outdoor Daily III

Tiny droplets of mist settled on this daisy. Pretty in the mizzle.

Outdoor Daily III

The violets are out today, perhaps to greet all who nurture (it is mother’s day in the UK), perhaps to delight those who stop and notice, and certainly to just be.

Outdoor Daily III

This feels like full circle: lesser celandine is back in flower. Back in April, during the first lockdown I wrote about this bright little flower before…. …and we’re still in lockdown. It feels like a long while!

Outdoor Daily III

Violets are starting to flower in Cornwall. Looking more closely, I’m intrigued by the change of colour pattern on their leaves as they mature with more daylight hours.

Outdoor Daily

Stop. Look. See! That’s been my take on local lockdown walks with my dog T’isker, even though they are quite energetic. The shape of this hedgerow flower, normally blurred by 30 mph and a car window, allowed me… Read More

Outdoor Daily

It’s good to see Purple Loosestrife in the wild, among reeds and Meadowsweet in a ditch along the bank of the Tamar estuary. It is one of the plants I introduced to my wildlife pond as a bare… Read More

Outdoor Daily

Ragwort! Its flowers are pretty but it contains, as many plants, some toxins that deter grazing. To animals this can be a problem when consumed in hay, but fresh it tastes too bad to be consumed in quantities… Read More

Outdoor Daily

Seeds of a thisle ready to take off on an adventure into the unknown. hope – flexibility – optimism – acceptance – risk – appreciation – opportunity – resilience – smile! I’m ready to travel again, too!

Outdoor Daily

The Cornish hedges near my house received their summer trim this week. It’s looking a little bleak, with all the ‘organised chaos’ of wild flowers reduced to stumps. However, the trim is necessary to keep the lane passable… Read More

Outdoor Daily

Some butterflies just flutter by, always on the move. For a while, this small tortoiseshell was content with where it settled. In German, we call this flower ‘Flammende Liebe’ – ‘flaming love’, and it is at its best… Read More

Outdoor Daily

Mellow yellow! After blue, white and pink, the yellow has returned to our lanes. Not in form of daffodils, of course, but a range of shapes and sizes…