Spring in irati forest, The life explosion

Scilles blooming  in late april

Recently  the snow disappeared, and plants are quick to sprout with the high temperatures.
In the lower parts of the valleys beeches already have their new leaves of light green, while ash trees, walnut trees and oaks take it a bit more quiet.
Those same trees also lost leaves later in the fall. If you go to sleep later, then you wake up later.



 Beech forest flowers called prevernals plants need to rush to make their life cycle before the shade of beech leaves kill them. So even with some snow can start to sprout  and do all their cycle in a month and a half. Most of them are bulbs, like  asturiensis ,bulbocodium and varduliensis daffodils already emerged in April, although poet´s daffodil (narcissus poeticus) will come out in June, They are also bulbs like the asphodels (Asphodelus albus) the dogtooth violet (Erythronium dens-canis ) and others as  the Pyrenean squill, (Scilla lilio- hyacinthus) the upper and following pictures.

Pyrenean squill. One who dares to be different from the crowd violet.

Over the next three weeks, large areas of the beech forest will be covered with these flowers, creating an spectacular colorful, which joined with the leaves of the beech trees that will sprout in the coming days, give us an excellent opportunity to make some of the best picture that We can  made of a beech forest
They are also  blooming anemones (Anemone nemorosa), the golden Liver (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium), or Spurge laurel (Daphne laureola)

After the Pyrenean Squills will be replaced on the fringe of the forest by others such as foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea), gentians (acaulis, Verna, in the few areas lutea), etc

The last liverleaves of the year

Spurge laurel (Daphne lauréola)

Snakehead (Arum maculatum)

 Opening Fern

But not only Pyrenean squills warn us that something is moving in the forest;
Mammals signals are evident wherever we look. From nibbled Squills to badger droppings, deer, roe deer, hare, wild boar, etc ..
The scratch places of  the Roe deers are very curious. Males remove vegetation around a beech small, and rubbed against her so that even damage the bark is scraped. In this way,. others roe deer look and smell, that this territory belongs to someone.

Roe deer scratch place.

Roe deer horn marks

Also insects begin to move, encouraged by the development of their food plants, especially  caterpillars.
These are some kind of noctuidae or Erebidae, moth larvae, which feed on these leaves megaphorbic plants that live only with very high humidity. Here they are eating the  Adenostiles alliariae, that will blossom into June- July. inside the forest.

Birds do not keep quiet, and We can hear the repetitive chanting of finches or Song thrush(turdus philomelos) and sporadic different types of woodpeckers.

Here We have the unfortunate aspect that leave a dead tree, but standing, after to be used as 5 stars restaurant where birds find different menu larvae (Cerambycidae, bark beatles ..) appropriate for each species. Nuthatchs ( Sitta europaea) also come here to eat something

Feed holes of woodpeckers

White backedwoodpecker female eating on the ground

This female woodpecker eating and was rummaging among the leaves for 10 minutes. The photo has taken two weeks before, when I did a tour for a bird watcher. It is by far because we do not approach much to not bother. In fact, while we watched with telescope, she did not notice our presence.
Well, this is what I observed in a space of 1 hour and a half and I thought you might be interested.

Living in a valley in the Pyrenees, although it has many disadvantages, it also has its advantages, as can be in these sites only 5 minutes from home.
Here the last photo of another mammal, trying to leave no trace in the forest, just in your emotions.


If you want to know these places can write to: itarinatura@itarinatura.com

May 16, 2016

Beeches have taken all the leaf and the dimly lit in the forest is full. Yesterday had been a foggy day and it seemed that at any time magical fairies court could appear as something normal.
Ramsons (Allium ursinum) begins to replace the flower of squill, and in the meadows the Gentiana acaulis start the flowering..

Añadir leyenda

Gentiana acaulis

Ramsons (Allium ursinum)

The Crab apple and the incredible fungus Terana coerulea.

Typical wheather for this time would be have 1'5 m. of snow in the mountain or more, but the truth is that except two small snow, we have not to much snow or rain, not in the dimensions to be considered normal in winter.
On this photo you can see here the crab apple (Malus sylvestris) that I have in my garden in Orbaizeta (Navarre) It is an exceptional specimen for the specie because it measures more than 10 meters.

Crab apple or Baxako.(Malus sylvestris)

The last  year had been very good for apple  trees, and they gave an unusual amount of fruit. In this case,3 months later, the most of apples from this specimen remain still on the ground, in perfect conditions.

I wonder how a fruit can be three months above the ground, outdoors, and not rot.
Surely there will be many animals feeding with them.

Pecked apple by a blackbird (Turdus merula)

I could see apples pecked by birds, probably from blackbirds (Turdus merula) but I could also observe eaten and defecated remains of carnivores like foxes.

With these apples, we make a liquor made with anise, very  much appreciated in these Pyrenean valleys, both in Navarra and in our neighboring valley of Garazi / Cize and Xiberoa / Soule across the border; the Baxaka or patxaka.

I picked up two boxes of these apples, which gave to my neighbors, and I did a test with few of them in white wine, to try out how it would catch the flavour of s the baxaka in white wine.
After three months I filtered, and bottled.
The result was a white wine with an astringent touch, and with a flavor reminiscent of quince.
I dont think so it is going to be fashionable to go bar hopping, but is cool.

It really heat up the stomach!!

Terana Coerulea

To finish, I leave you with this photo of a cobalt color mushroom,  eating this stick of boxwood. Although the picture clarifies a little bit, it has an extraordinary blue color. It´s the Terana coerulea,
Here you are two links:


http://www.biodiversidadvirtual.org/hongos/Terana-coerulea-(Lam.)-Kuntze-1891-img80449.html

http://eol.org/data_objects/26929958

He was elected fungus of the 2009 by the German Mycological Society, for the great antibiotic action on Streptococcus pyogenes, who causing bacterial pharyngitis, and framed in the type of meat-eating bacterias!
You see, a twig with a nice color, but it is much more than it seems!

The essential things are  invisible to the eyes!

Birds, flowers and wildcats in march.

After being snowing heavily during all February and have an historic snowfall, the rain came. The snow began to melt causing floods that were affecting localities of the midle and south of Navarre..
In this bend the Irati River flooded the road and was cut overnight.

Irati  riveer between Orbara and Aribe ( Aezkoa valley)

when the snow melted, the grass was been visible, and  herbivores went quickly to eat grass that was hidden.

When snow began melting

Deer grazing. Picture taken from the window of my house.

But the field mice ( Apodemus sylvaticus) and moles (Talpa europea) also took advantage of these days of tranquility to leave their burrows. The Wildcats (Felis silvestris) stand guard at the entrance of molehills or mouse burrows, waiting to attack minimal movement.
Sometimes, in the same meadow, I saw a fox, 4 deer and one wildcat.
On another occasion, I saw up to three Wildcats in the same field, and a fourth in the other side of  the Irati river.

Wildcat  (Felis silvestris)

Often  they are near from the villages, so, how can we recognize if there is a Wildcat  or common cat, at first glance, and from far away ?

• Color: all  of them have earth color, to blend with the environment. Sometimes  they hybridize with domestic cats, and can be really difficult, if not impossible, know if they are  hybrids or not, from far away. If unfortunately we find one dead, there are typical design of dark stripes patterns on its back.
• Tail: Much thicker than a domestic cat, has several broad dark rings, and the end with a black mark.
• Size: There are more corpulent.
• Behavior:  Always they are exceptions, but if it is a domestic cat let us come closer. If the wildcat is observed, and is relatively far, will tends to flee, and if we are too close, about 25 meters, often he sticks against  ground watching us, and if we have not seen him moving before, we can think it is a mound of a molehill, or cow dung.

This saw me

With snow are more visible.

Crouched, fixing his gaze in Me

But also March also brought a spectacular migration.
At first  the cranes came in a very good day, but the weather worsened again. Then,the white storks came, and some black storks too.

white storks in Ekai, near from Agoitz/Aoiz (Navarre)

White storks (Ciconia ciconia) on the way to the rest of Europa.

Somewhat later, on March 5, they also appeared in Orbaizeta, dozens of them.
 Older people commented place only once saw something in this village.

It happened that there were some badweather days, after having been rising temperatures and the birds that were already on the way, they met the Pyrenees covered with clouds, and decided to wait.
In the  Santiago´s way, at the crossroads of Auritz / Burguete the road to Garralda, We could see thousands and thousands of cranes circling above the meadows as deciding what they would do.

Ortzanzurieta mountain,in the end, and Auritz in the end left

Eurasian stone- curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus)

Black stork( Ciconia nigra)

Days later appeared lapwings, little Egrets and some flocks of small birds that I could not identify.

little Egret (Egretta garcetta ) and lapwings in the bottom

Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)

The flowers that you can see below, are usually the first year to bloom by mid-January, but this year have been delayed until the first week of March!
As I have said on other occasions, The snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) is a rare survivor of the flora that we had here in the last Ice Age. When the ice move away to the north, most of the plants and animals typical of this climate were disappearing, but some of them resist, always close to the border of extinction.

Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)

Finally, a photo of the full moon of March. The winter sky is spectacular to see some constellations of this time as Leo or Orion, and have a clean atmosphere. Of course, dressed with warm clothings.

Fullmoon in Nagore (  5 mars 2015)