Our regular visitor, he is a non-native sika deer, doesn't do too much damage but he tests my degree of non-attachment and loving kindness! He likes to rub his antlers on the bark of young trees, removing their bark. This stunts the trees severely and sometimes kills them. He also breaks branches when eating leaves, but mostly it is the young shoots in spring that he eats and the trees can recover from this.
Perhaps he thinks he is invisible standing behind the apple tree and although he will run off when we come near, he is surprisingly brazen.
Magpie pecking at his antlers. He is not just one, Tivon counted 8 Sika Deer in the next field and I expect there are not just 8 either.
Sarcoscypha coccinea, the scarlet elf cup, scores of these carpeted a damp area near the big pond.
Frost on the bank of the big pond... and reflections.
Reflection of oak.
Cornus reflected in the big pond on a frosty morning.
February Reflections in the big pond.
(No the photo isn't upside down!).
(No the photo isn't upside down!).
Growing near the big pond... Salix chaenomeloides "Mt Aso".
Chimonanthus, wintersweet.
Trillium.
Erythronium.
Fresh new growth of Schefflera brevipedunculata.
Equisetum arvense, Horsetail was growing in the garden before it even was a garden. Many, if not most, gardeners consider it to be terrible weed but we have been living with it in harmony for almost 20 years, this is a plant that I respect!
...Isn't it handsome!
Darmera peltata.
Magnolia Rostrata.
Native Primrose.
Tivons turkey and one of the hens on the meadow with primroses.
A hail shower on 25th April.