I didn't manage to investigate the woodland snowdrops in the reserve, but today's ride made it a bit irrelevant.
There were snowdrops in gardens, snowdrops in odd patches on the roadside verges and glorious carpets of snowdrops in tiny bits of woodland that I've been riding past for more than a decade and never even noticed the ground flora.
The great tits were hard at it
. The textbook song has mutated into the annual propagate or decline competiton. Improvisations on the "2 note motif" that they repeat into a phrase are getting inventive.
Blue tits have been demonstrating the resounding voices that earned the label Tomtits.
A few chaffinches singing.
Did anyone else hear the chaffinch on R4's Tweet Of The Day this morning?
A feel good sound if ever there was one.
Yes
.
The local birds are still hestitant, but are now a song that says spring is just around the corner.
I spotted a primrose in flower yesterday on the same sunny bank as the celandines. It's hard by the churchyard in Hampton-in-Arden, so may have escaped from the cultivated memorial flowers. Withal they were a sign of things to come. The celandines meanwhile, were no further on than they were 5 days ago.