freshly minted leaves

I love the colour of freshly minted leaves after they break free from their sticky cocoons. They are soft, vunerable, and vividly green. The potential of a long summer shines in them, especially when golden evening light pours across their trembling veins.

I took this shot from below, looking straight up at the leaf, suspended in all its glory.

With much to watch in the undergrowth, and at eye level, in woodlands you can sometimes forget to look up, to the snatches of sky in between the looming treetops.

Yesterday the wind gusted through the branches, and it sounded like the sea: waves crashed in the distance and washed up to my position to engulf the trees, creak their boughs, and shiver the foamy leaves.

I stood there for a time, listening to the forest, that great and fascinating ecosystem. I never tire of it. You can learn something new every day under its wise tutelage.

When I lowered my gaze I was delighted to spot this surviving bracket fungus. Few of them remain intact during the winter, though brackets are often the most hardy of mushrooms.

Spring is a late straggler this year, but I suspect summer will rush past it, impatient for its imperious reign.