Welcome Spring

The Scilla vindobonensis is a small but lovely blue flowering spring plant from my native land that I have been photographing in March since 2017. It has become my spring welcome event. This is a photo from 2021, which shows how small the plant is. Indeed, the natural treasures of my homeland are mostly little things like this, which only the loving eye notices and truly appreciates. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves. I believe that you have to stay attentive to the little things, otherwise you lose focus and your personality and then your environment will fall apart because of your lost attention. Very often, we fail to see the values in front of us and we strive for completely absurd goals. The blossoming of the blue flower stars year after year, despite the countless natural damages we have caused, always touches me.

In this photo you can also see a Corydalis cava in the background, of which you can see hundreds in the third photo of this post. Scilla starts to bloom in the first days of March, while Corydalis has a stunning carpet of flowers in early April. Surprisingly few people appreciate the spring flowers of Békés County, even though the awakening of nature, the carnival of small but colourful plants blooming before the foliage opens, is just as captivating here. Every year I go along the forest section of the red tourist trail in Doboz-Szanazug and admire my favourites. (You can find the map at the beginning of the image selection at the end of this post. All photos were taken in March 2021.) So the spring flowering starts with the Scilla in early March and reaches its full splendour with the Corydalis mass by mid-April. This photo was taken a month later in almost the same place as the opening photo.

Three years ago, the soil water content was better, which was good for the plants. They have blossomed in masses and densely, as we have seen for a long time. The picture doesn't do justice to the magnificent sight of a carpet of flowers covering at least a thousand square metres! This is worth seeing live. And to put away the phone, the camera and just stand there, taking in the sights and fragrance. In addition, if you are lucky, you may also see one of our protected butterflies, Parnassius mnemosyne, whose caterpillar eats Corydalis cava. I have not yet managed to photograph the butterfly, although I have not given up hope that I will. It is very impatient because it has a short lifespan, as the leaves of Corydalis wilt quickly after flowering.

This is one of my absolute favourite photos from March 2021. Here you can see Anemone ranunculoides in the foreground. When I was quite close to the palisade-treetower, I took the photo along the red hiking trail. If you're passing by in the first half of April this year, you can enjoy the flowers too. Unfortunately, our spring-flowering herbaceous forest plants have been reduced to a very small area due to the clear-cutting and full-tillage timber management of the last century. You can't see the small wonders captured in my photos everywhere. You really do have to go to a specific place and see for yourself the decline of our natural treasures. I dedicated an online magazine issue to our forest values. (This is my work in Hungarian.) A forest is a very species-rich habitat if it is a forest and not just a timber plantation. The number of fungal species is also significantly higher. You can also read about mushrooms in my online magazine.
And work has started again this year, as the growing season begins on 1 March.

P.S.: My last photo from March 2021 shows the wild chives, which is a valuable wild onion. I am a fan of it and collect it carefully, cutting off half the foliage with scissors. I do not pull the plants outwards.