Boing! Boing!
Spring has most definitely sprung - in fact, it's bouncing in like Tigger on Speed. A week ago the grass was sulking in browny-green and only the Hawthorn was showing occasional signs of blossom. (Around here, May generally comes in in early March nowadays.) Now the woods are green. All the trees except the oaks - always behind everything else - are in leaf. The magnolia in the garden across the way is smothered in blossom. The hornbeams are gold-green with their catkins and light green with leaf. In the week primroses, celandines, wood anemones, daisies, dandelions, violets, both types of stitchworts and even bluebells have been seen locally in bloom. I have no doubt that, had I been to Claybury woods I would also have seen wild garlic. New bright green grass is growing with almost the same speed as its bamboo relative.
There are a satisfying number of bumble bees, and I have already seen at least four types of butterfly - Red Admirals in quantity, a couple of Painted Ladies, a stray Large White and something that was definitely yellow but not close enough to identify with any certainty. The birds are singing their little hearts out (though perhaps the Blackbird who imitates car alarms ought to put a cap on it) and the woodpeckers are drumming at speed to give Keith Moon pause.
You can even walk some paths in the wood in walking shoes rather than wellingtons...
There are a satisfying number of bumble bees, and I have already seen at least four types of butterfly - Red Admirals in quantity, a couple of Painted Ladies, a stray Large White and something that was definitely yellow but not close enough to identify with any certainty. The birds are singing their little hearts out (though perhaps the Blackbird who imitates car alarms ought to put a cap on it) and the woodpeckers are drumming at speed to give Keith Moon pause.
You can even walk some paths in the wood in walking shoes rather than wellingtons...