Bluebells woods have a mysterious air. To get the full effect, you have to imagine everything moving in the lightest breeze, bees humming in the bells, birds singing as they attend their nests, and the odd grey squirrel bouncing around.
Light dapples through the tender young beech and chestnut leaves, moving across one patch then another; brightening or fading as clouds float between the woodland and the sun.
Beech is the most beautiful tree at this time of year.
In case you’re (rightly) thinking I ought not to have been trampling the bluebells, I didn’t: the woods are laced with paths, broad, ‘ordinary’ ones and many more secret or narrow ones. Some are more suited to foxes or deer than humans, others are wet, more river than path.
Since my pictures of the beech tree leaves and the bluebells are on the impressionistic side, you might like to see the nodding stalks of dancing bells closer up:
I’m sharing these so Mum can look inside the woods: she was saying this weekend that her bluebell wood-rambling days are over and she just has to imagine they are still much as they were.
Susan Rushton 
A bluebell wood! I have never seen anything like this! No word seems adequate, but “wonder” comes to mind. If Titania and Oberon don’t live here, they don’t live anywhere.
The flowers have a delicacy that loses nothing from being in a crowd. The flowers are a few hundred yards away from the fairy bridges, so you might be right.
Lovely photos, Susan. I hope one day to see English bluebells in person.
You and Laurie have the same desire, not for the first time!
A carpet of blue – a joy to behold.
Reminds me of walking through the bluebell woods in Sussex in 1978. I couldn’t get over the mass of colour in an otherwise green/brown/grey sort of shady woodland floor.
The bluebells do steal the show. I’ve been realising how many other, much more modest wildflowers there are in the wood that I’ve been overlooking in my excitement to see bluebells.
Absolutely enchanting! If ever I return to England, it will be during bluebell season.
It obviously varies around the country and year to year, but early May is a good guess for Lancashire.
Noted!
I’d read about carpets of bluebells, but I didn’t realize that they are so dense. Thanks for the post and the photos
They spread when they are happy.
Your lovely pics remind me of days I spent in English woods in spring.
I’m glad to have brought back happy memories.
It’s not only the bluebells that are so appealing, it’s the combination of pastel colors all around them that adds to the effect. It feels magical, even just looking at the photos.
The flowers are perfectly timed to work with the unfurling of the leaves.
Beautiful! I have special memories of bluebell woods. đŸ˜ƒ The scent is womderful too.
I love their scent too. It has a peculiar quality I can only describe as openness.
Oh, how beautiful! Bluebells are native to where I live, but we rarely see them. Poor timing I’m on my part, maybe.
I look for them here from the end of April until the third week of May.
Beautiful! This how Wonderland looks like đŸ’™
It’s the highlight of the woodland year, for me at least.
oh what a gorgeous post, do hope your mum enjoyed it too
She did, thank you.
đŸ¥°
Wow, how beautiful.
Thanks, Pat.