Development of Spring

Snakeshead Fritillary

Snakeshead Fritillary

Spring sneaks up on you.  There are a lot of very small changes that make very little difference and then everything explodes into action.  One day you can see through the woods, the next, there are so many leaves that you can’t.  One day there is just a little bit of growth in the grass, the next there seem to be cowslips and snakes head fritillaries all around.  One day you start to notice the leaves of lesser celandine and creeping buttercup, the next they are in flower.

Lesser Celandine

Snakeshead Fritillary in bud

Comma butterfly feeding on willow catkins

Spring came alive this weekend.  Great spotted woodpeckers were calling and drumming.  We seem to have four chiffchaffs singing in the woods this year.  The yellowhammer are in song.  Buzzards are swooping over the clearings and meadows.  The tall grass is shaking and waving as the field voles dispute their rights to use the runs under the thatch.  Other butterflies are joining the brimstones on the wing – small tortoiseshell, peacock and comma.  The bees are coming alive in their hives and nests, returning home with little pollen sacs stuffed full.  The woods start to smell of wild garlic.  The skylark is in song all day – the song gets into your head, so much that when you return home, it remains with you, like an echo.

Cowslip

The First Buttercup

The coming of spring seems like a miracle every year, for all that now understand its genesis in the travel and alignment of the Earth around the Sun.  It is so very exciting.

Primrose in Monochrome

Daffodils all in a row