In A Timeless Place

Earlier this morning I was to make a visit to the neighbouring village with regards to some business matters. Although winter seems to make a quick (hopefully!) return, I decided to use the early morning's sunshine and walk. 

A few individuals in the past have mentioned some ancient woodland nearby but for some reason I never went to go and visit. Today however I decided to go and find it as it was on route to where I wanted to go.

So I got on my way, taking off with delays due to phonecalls so the walk to the destination was brisk. But I had still enough time to take this stunning peace of ancient woodland, only 20 minutes walking distance away! I cannot believe that I never went to visit it before! I decided that on the way back I would take extra time.

By the time I was on my way back, the skies had clouded over but it was still ok-ish with regards to light. I would just have to have an extra steady hand and breathe even less ... 

It is a truely timeless place ... with a huge variety of lifeforms that I hadn't seen before. There was also a small stream going through it and it was full with wood ants. 

It was the wood ants that had my full attention and I greatly enjoyed observing them. They are quite 'in your face' characters ... making a big fuss about the camera lens being right in front of their little faces. 

But I decided that I wasn't in a rush to get back and so I remained with them for a while, until they thought of me as being 'harmless' and so they contineud with their daily affairs.

If anyone is reading this and knows what the above black lichen / fungus is, I would love to know! My searches on Google so far were not succesful.

The lighting was quite difficult, including the overcast sky and many photographs didn't turn out well enough to show here. I will try and get there again tomorrow morning, weather permitting.

Lichen on stone

 And this tiny mining bee was having a rest on the stone. 

I wonder if these little bees too, just like the bumblebees, need a certain wing temparature before they can take off. Perhaps this one was hoping to get some heat from the stone, although there wasn't enough sunshine to warm the stone.  Next time you walk past a stonewall or some rocks on a sunny day, just feel them with your bare hands ... they are pleasantly warm. (storage heaters ... )

 And of course, with all the April-showers, there are plenty of water drops sparkling like crystals anywhere the sunlight touches them.


Hopefully better lighting tomorrow so that I can show you more of this beautiful piece of ancient woodland.

Thank you!