When there’s craziness everywhere else, there’s even more reason to spend time in the quiet and calm of the woods. Better than worrying about where we’re going to buy pasta and tomato paste.

This morning I’m trying to deal with a much more manageable problem.  Is this explosion of stamens on a goat willow or grey willow tree, or even a hybrid of the two? I have a lot to learn on identifying trees. The guides suggest the best diagnostic feature seems to be leaf shape.  Grey willow has leaves twice as long as they are wide, whilst goat willow leaves are oval with fine grey hairs underneath, and have a pointed tip which bends to one side.

This is my favourite kind of problem. One that can only be solved by waiting.  In the meantime, I enjoy the contrast between the silvery down of the catkins on this male tree at the edge of the clearing and the buttery yellow stamens.

Overhead, a crow calls stridently and I glance up to see a buzzard flushed into open, it’s ponderous wing beats finally lifting it above the canopy and away to safety.  I’m thrilled as I’ve never see one in the wood before.

It’s been a perfect sunday nature worship combination of the familiar and the new.