Spring in the Mecsek Hills, Hungary

One of my favourite activities is walking in the forests and hills of the Mecsek - around 200 sq km of hills and forests, crossed by few roads, and with only a few villages. I’m lucky to live close enough to the edge of the forest to walk up the foothills and then pick a path to follow into the forest. For the most part the forest is either oak based, on the southern and western hillsides, or beech on the northern and eastern parts. Hungarians refer to the hills as mountains - but really they are too small to call mountains, big hills maybe.

This year spring has arrived very late, March and April were some of the wettest and coldest that anyone could remember - but with the advent of May the temperatures have risen, the flowers and insects have burst into life. Unfortunately so have the mosquitoes - only 3 days ago there were no mosquitoes around - now stopping in the wrong part of the forest is a really bad idea. Thousands of the little biters home in on you. They’re least numerous in the full sun.

I have finally bought a real camera - well still digital but an SLR digital - a Nikon D70. I’m so happy with it, learning so much and enjoying photography at a new level. Here are photos that I’ve taken in the Mecsek over the last few weeks, as ever, shrunk and compressed for the web, I can only assure you that the full images are absolutely stunning ;)

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