Floating crowfoot toughs it out with the frogs

Swch Cae Rhiw, Ceiriog Valley In the puddle, among the crowfoot, wriggle scores of tadpoles, dark sperm-like beings

High up the valley a patch of white looks as if there have been snowflakes blowing across the hills, even in bright sunshine. It turns out to be flowers on the surface of a puddle, a kind of layby to the stream running alongside the track.

The white flowers are a kind of water crowfoot, one of a group of amphibious buttercups with little white star flowers and rounded, lobed, leaves above the water and feathery fronds below. The flowers look so slight, as ephemeral as spring snow, yet they must be tough as old boots to survive up here.