2018 NH Spring / SH Autumn Photo Thread

Are those greenish trees leaved trees or willows with catkins?

@ Baba: Must be catkins. Only seen tiny leafs on hedge plants here, not on trees yet.

There are both there: catkins and something green as well.

We don't have many bird cherries because of the bird cherry ermines.

They don't. We don't have them for aesthetic reasons.

Hi everyone! During the last week I was in England for working (more precisely at the Harwell campus, Oxfordshire, for making an experiment), and I was lucky enough to have some spare time for exploring a little bit the place. Note that it was my first time in England, so I will probably make some obvious or stupid comments


Here there are a couple of pictures I took during this week:

Thursday, April 19:

we landed in England last Thursday, which was the hottest day of the heat-wave phase in England if I'm not wrong. It was actually pretty hot, if I had known it in advance I would have worn a T shirt...

Probably I didn't see a single cloud all over the day, that was not exactly the weather I was expecting when we planned the travel. 

Some pictures on the road from the airport to Oxford:





Some pictures taken during a quick tour of Oxford:










I haven't ever seen a "ivy tree" before.


^Lot's of people sunbathing in green areas

We returned to Oxford in Monday for having lunch in a pub on the Thames river.

Monday, April 23

^ view just outside the pub. The weather changed completely in comparison with the first day we visited the city, for us it was a little bit too cold and windy for eating outdoor. Also the indoor was really characteristic tough



Fish & chips anyone?
Seriously, I have fried fish at home too, but to use batter instead of breading makes it muuuch better (I have to try this at home too).




Our longest trip was to Bath, on Sunday. The sky was irregularly clouded, but somehow when I returned back to my room in the evening my face was red for a sunburn begin. Just to underline that we can get sunburn too.

Anyway, the first thing we noticed is that the city is literally invaded by seagulls, is it normal?

Sunday, April 22

^ This guy nearly hit our heads just for being the first one reaching a piece of bread on the ground. 





Some sightseeing:







The bridge whic doesn't look like a bridge on the Avon river:


On the right side it looks like this:









Here there is some countryside. One detail I noticed and that I didn't expected is that England is actually quite hilly, some hills look quite steep too.

Tuesday, April 24



These are taken yesterday from the train on the way to the airport instead:

Wednesday, April 25




Finally, some pictures from the plane:

^ southern English coast


^ the French coast on the other side


^ and, finally, the Alps (I'm quite sure that the large valley is the Aosta Valley).

Yes, they're increasingly moving inland to large urban centres and landfill sites in order to find more food, especially during the winter. They're intelligent, but very annoying, and sometimes aggressive.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_herring_gull#Interactions_with_humans

The "buds" look like they're the same as the catkins in the catkin picture?

Also, super strange to see flowers underneath conifer trees.

Aight. Speaking of buds, there are no buds like poplar buds. They're bloody massive and brutal. Look like clusters of broad arrowheads. I was gonna include this but forgot.