Water Rail, Hawthorn

Both added at lunchtime. The former from the filter beds, and the latter from the roadside, where the leaves are emerging now. There was also an emerging plant in the filter beds which I think is Marsh Marigold. I'll check before adding it. It's perennial and there was one in the same place last year and I've been keeping an eye out for it, so I think that one will be fine.

Special Branch

After reading up on identification of trees from their branches I decided to do the rounds at Cullaloe at lunchtime. I was going to hold off on these until they had leaves, but it was a good excuse to put some new knowledge into practice.

The biology-resources link is here: link. I think it's for high school biology students. I once was one of those, but only for one year when I did a crash course biology "O" Grade

Here's one of the illustrations that inspired the foray - a Horse Chestnut twig:

So much of the surface is made up of scar tissue - leaf scars, where you can see the ends of closed-off vascular bundles, scale scars - the little collections of transverse lines. Here's one from Cullaloe, now recorded:

You can see above the little collection of scars where the previous year's bud scales would have been, and the leaf scars with vascular bundles closed off in autumn to protect the tree from dehydration.

I also recorded Sycamore, Pedunculate Oak and Beech since I was "doing" trees

Sycamore

Oak, clustered ends