Moshe and the camera in the woods

This one I wanted. It's worth clicking on it just for maximum viewing because I found the collage of different species quite delightful.. this was in a flat area of limestone out in the open which had caught numerous little pools and this red stuff was thriving nowhere else. Its flowers are extremely tiny, white and the red 'leaves' are like those of a succulent. You can see upper right the ground beneath is still charred by last summer's fire but no deterrent to life, the opposite!

Nasturtium officinale. Found by Moshe amongst the rocks under the pines. 4x life size at least

A tiny composite, a very small member of the dandelion family blooming in many places at the moment, striking for its beautiful orange colouring. Moshe found this one too.

Today our 13 year old son Moshe was keen to use the camera so we let him, with a little guidance. Some of the subjects were my choices, some were his and in all we were very happy with the results. (above and next entry)

Our other favourite discovery today was of a cavern I had not known about before. It was just a few dozen yards east of the quarry trail where it loops around to the west from the central trail. It's more of a 'skylight' entry, there's a huge boulder covering most of the top and an opening big enough for one person to climb down inside. The visible floor is just over five feet below but most of the cave is pitch black from our view so we could not know how far to the sides it goes or if there are any other openings in the floor out of view. We had rope for descent and ascent (which we had found elsewhere in the forest) but no flashlight with us so it would not be safe to explore yet.

Birds today included cooing laughing doves and house sparrows about the buildings, feral pigeon, hooded crow, jackdaws, and, in the woods, Eurasian jays and brief sighting of collared dove though they're still not cooing. Beautiful blackbird song late afternoon and dusk.

Two buck gazelle noticed grazing on the hill top skyline to the north

~4.30 p.m. Temp just over 20 degrees C. (today's range 13.5 -just over 22 degrees C)
28% humidity, wind WSW 4.3 knots but had been easterlies all morning till noon)

Another of Moshe's discoveries, one of the yellow toadstools quite common in the forest now.