Signs of Spring

 We have been having some beautiful clear cold days recently and I went for a walk around Strone, which is a ridge above Newtonmore, with some great views.

Although there is not much in flower yet, the trees are showing signs of life with catkins. These are the male pollen producing flowers, and their pollen gets blown about by the wind to (hopefully) land on a female flower and fertilise it so the tree can produce seed.  There were plenty of Alders growing in the ditches, and they had catkins next to the old cones that produce the seeds. 

Alder catkins and last year's cones

 I realised that I had not really taken much notice of catkins before and although the Alder was easy to identify because of the cones, I did not know what this tree was at first, though it definitely had the brightest yellow catkins.

Thinking about it, I could rule out a few trees - not birch, as although it has catkins, they are not out yet and the bark and maroon new twigs are easy to recognise.  Not Rowan as that has flowers that are insect pollinated so it does not have catkins... In fact , it was Hazel - not a tree I see much of round here and this was in a small plantation. The female flowers are tiny with red stigmas sticking out so I will have to look more closely next time and get a photo.

There was also a willow which was badly damaged in the recent storms.

This had the grey furry pussy willow catkins but too high up to get a good photo, so I decided to try alongside Loch Imrich as there are several willows that grow on the banks. Willows are another group of trees that like water. I found no catkins but several large larches had blown over or snapped.

The blown over root plate of a larch, with my walking poles for scale.

Still in search of pussy willow, I went to The Gravels, some scrub land between two housing areas, as I knew there was a big willow there. Success!

The catkins start off with a lovely grey furry coat, hence pussy willow, but later they will turn yellow when the pollen bearing stamens burst out. Pussy willow is also known as Goat Willow or Salix caprea.

As an added bonus, I also found some Leucojum or Snowflakes which are a little like Snowdrops at first glance. They probably grew from someone dumping garden waste.

On a sadder note, there was another sign of Spring - two squashed frogs on their way to the Loch drawn by the urge to spawn...

I have not seen any frogspawn yet, but it can't be long before it appears.