GLOBAL WARMING AND (SPRING) GENTIAN WARNING

The beautiful and reasonably rare flowering Spring Gentians spotted while walking with the dogs this March 30th evening on Derrylooney, Rusheen Bay, Galway; almost a month earlier than would be expected.

The majestic Spring Gentians on west side of path up back of Derrylooney Hill, Rusheen Bay.

Google Earth view of Rusheen Bay, Barna, Galway.

From same path on north side of Derrylooney Hill, but

other side (east) of path and taken on 2nd April 2023.

THE SNOWCOLD LIGHT

 

THE SNOWCOLD LIGHT

 

Here:

Southwards, the horizon of sky and land embrace,

The azimuth smothered by a Snowcold light,

Here; in deep crevasses without trace,

On Burren's grey karst-bound might.

There:

Eastwards, on the frozen steppes of Dantean space,

Keened by the bittern cry of a Snowcold light,

There; is found a true resilient grace,

Tempered by the black evil of an infernal fight.

Nowhere:

Downwards; Two swimmers, dive then swim;

Through crested waves of a Snowcold light: invigorate.

No; Where soldiers dive then die, on a whistled whim,

And crimson killing fields remain: emancipate.

 

Looking South across Galway Bay towards a snowcapped

Burren from Blackrock Diving Platform, Salthill, Galway.

  

RANDOM GLIMPSES OF NATURE

THISTLE ADMIRAL

CURLEW'S FLIGHT

DROMOLAND AUTUMN

SKELLIG 'HEAD-THE-BALL' GANNETT

PILGRIMS PROGRESS

WEST CORK KNITTING

MUSHROOM GARLANDED BEECH TREE

Barna Woods, Galway.

 

SUNSET BLACKROCK, SALTHILL, GALWAY 19th January 2023

A 'LIGHTBULB' MOMENT

WARPED CONVERSATIONS

BETWEEN TWO LIGHTS

THE CLOUD

 

Barna Bog - Dog Days

 Our Cocker Spaniel of 6 months on the bog today.

Amongst the rushes

The look!

in full flow.....

GALWAY SUNRISE 10th DECEMBER 2022

 

HOT AIR RISING & COLD AIR DESCENDING OVER GALWAY BAY DECEMBER 9TH, 2022

 

GALWAY BACCHANALIA 17TH NOVEMBER 2022

Images from the by-now traditional high-spirited, even higher-skirted, Christmas jumpered, fake-tanned, funny-hatted all day romp on the streets and in the pubs of Galway known as the Students' Christmas; the excuse ( if ever one was needed) for a pre-Christmas exam bacchanalian fest.

THE MUSHROOM TREE – BARNA WOODS, GALWAY, IRELAND 1st OCTOBER 2022

While walking the dogs today in the local woods I came across this Beech tree with what I hoped, somewhat romantically, were symbiotic mushrooms growing on it from ground level to the highest branches. No other trees in vicinity had same arrangement. Beech trees do depend entirely on a symbiotic relationship with fungi, but these are in the soil (mycorrhizae) and not, as far as I am aware, as outcrops on the trunk and branches. Not much foliage on tree ( will have to check again in spring) so it is far more likely that the tree is entirely or almost entirely standing dead wood providing for the present a nutrient rich skeleton for parasitic rather than symbiotic fungi, until an Atlantic storm topples it.

Like a scene from Avatar