Author Topic: Signs of Spring  (Read 208839 times)

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #675 on: 25 February, 2014, 07:02:42 pm »
Crocuses and daffodils today .daffs only just open though  :)
the slower you go the more you see

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #676 on: 26 February, 2014, 01:14:30 pm »
Signs of frog carnage on the roads yesterday. I think that's very early, isn't it?

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #677 on: 26 February, 2014, 09:54:58 pm »
Crocuses and daffodils today .daffs only just open though  :)
Crocuses/croci are now looking splendid. It's only taken a few days for the few hopeful buds to turn into great patches of colour.

Daffs seem to behaving oddly. Occasional patches are in full flower, but most seem to show no more than the odd yellow bud. I took the pretty way home today to check out a couple of local fields of wild daffodils, which are usually a few weeks later to flower than the cultivars. One had a couple of yellow buds.


hellymedic

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Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #678 on: 26 February, 2014, 10:50:12 pm »
Signs of frog carnage on the roads yesterday. I think that's very early, isn't it?

Usually close to 1 March on the B1000 in Hertfordshire so not really.

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #679 on: 26 February, 2014, 11:49:57 pm »
Four bits of hawthorn hedge today had leaves.

It is still a spectacular year for snowdrops ;D. Meanwhile the celandine flowers are still very few.

Judging from the carpets of little leaves in today's workplace, the woodland celandines are a week or three away. One of our experts pointed out clumps of greater stictchwort leaves as well.

Bluebell leaves are now carpeting ancient woodlands. So are the leaves of wild garlic if you know where to look. Today I didn't recognise the difference :-[ before getting to work on some best-before-decade hazel coppice stools. Hazel never smelt that good ;). It's almost always an act of faith that trampling on the young growth while coppicing "trees" to let in sunlight to regenerate the ground flora is beneficial in both the medium & long term.

Meanwhile the hazel catkins are having a particularly good year.  Wherever I ride they are still the best green bits of hedges & scrubland.

We have frogspawn in the pond, though not a lot. There are probably one or two frogs there, judging by the reaction to my inspection tonight.

Saw red deadnettles & white deadnettles in flower. Have they been flowering all through the "winter"?

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
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Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #680 on: 27 February, 2014, 04:56:58 am »
As I carry out my lonely vigil I can hear a Maidstone Blackbird hard at it at least 90 minutes before dawn.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #681 on: 28 February, 2014, 08:46:01 am »
The bluetits have been inspecting the nest boxes this morning :thumbsup:
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Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #682 on: 28 February, 2014, 12:11:25 pm »
Signs of frog carnage on the roads yesterday. I think that's very early, isn't it?

Usually close to 1 March on the B1000 in Hertfordshire so not really.
I met some frog, toad and newt searchers on Wednesday evening, they said it was still a bit cold for them.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #683 on: 28 February, 2014, 06:58:48 pm »
Today : Rooks starting the first day of nest building.
123 Miles East of Marsh Gibbon

Vince

  • Can't climb; won't climb
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #684 on: 01 March, 2014, 11:14:51 pm »
The beach side cafes are being assembled in Scheveningen

216km from Marsh Gibbon

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #685 on: 01 March, 2014, 11:16:26 pm »
It's goggle season again. Lots of little flies in my eyes.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #686 on: 03 March, 2014, 09:29:24 am »
Hedge strimming in part of the playground this morning.
"The smell of two-stroke, the smell of summer."
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Wowbagger

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Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #687 on: 03 March, 2014, 01:05:41 pm »
Cetti's warbler this morning on two tree island, and another bird I think was a warbler of some kind. I didn't see either, but heard them both. The Cetti's warbler almost knocked me over with its wall of sound.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Kim

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Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #688 on: 03 March, 2014, 03:07:01 pm »
Hedge strimming in part of the playground this morning.
"The smell of two-stroke, the smell of summer."

I have a strong psychosomatic sneeze reaction to the smell of two-stroke oil.  It makes sense, given my hayfever, but I've been known to get it in reaction to mopeds, outboard motors and the like.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #689 on: 03 March, 2014, 03:17:38 pm »
Hedge strimming in part of the playground this morning.
"The smell of two-stroke, the smell of summer."

I have a strong psychosomatic sneeze reaction to the smell of two-stroke oil.  It makes sense, given my hayfever, but I've been known to get it in reaction to mopeds, outboard motors and the like.
For me, it's part of the memory of summer - when the grass was cut on the (infants') school playing field and lunchtimes were a mix of grass and two-stroke. Ah, nostalgia!

But does the smell of beer make you sneeze? No reason it should, just that line is from a song by the Daintees "The smell of beer, smells of summer" - I think it's Me & Mathew and probably not every version, but it's stuck in my mind! And it is, in its way, a sign of spring.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Ruth

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #690 on: 03 March, 2014, 07:51:28 pm »
Daffodils blooming in my hanging baskets.  They look pretty  :D

mcshroom

  • Mushroom
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #691 on: 03 March, 2014, 08:49:53 pm »
First Spring Lambs :D

Climbs like a sprinter, sprints like a climber!

spindrift

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #692 on: 04 March, 2014, 07:06:30 pm »
Frog spawn in the pond, checked the diary, two weeks earlier than last year.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #693 on: 04 March, 2014, 07:30:20 pm »
Geraniums in the hanging basket are opening out, many trees in blossom in London.

tiermat

  • According to Jane, I'm a Unisex SpaceAdmin
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #694 on: 05 March, 2014, 09:52:14 am »
The climbing rose outside the back door at the digs is putting out new shoots.

My cherry tree, at home, has leaf buds on it, better not get a hard frost in the next few weeks!
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #695 on: 05 March, 2014, 11:16:57 pm »
A carpet of primroses on the usual "earliest" site at the bottom of Hatton Bank.

An isolated cowslip-ish flower at the SE end of Solihull bypass. The flowers looked too big for proper cowslips, but oxlip, false oxlip & garden escape all look equally improbable ??? .

Morrisette

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Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #696 on: 06 March, 2014, 09:15:19 am »
Daffodils everywhere.
Rook/crow/whatever-they-are nests appearing (including renovations to a MASSIVE nest in a tree behind a pub on my commute. It's the Buckingham Palace of nests. It has a lobby area. Seriously - it's huge)
A bumble bee - erm - bit early for that.
Blossom on next door's plum tree.
Pigeons perched on the fence doing that ducking and bobbing thing that means they're about to mate.
Spring is here!!
Not overly audacious
@suffolkncynical

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #697 on: 06 March, 2014, 10:02:00 am »
I saw primroses daffodils and snow drops at dorney court yesterday. Also some very tiny low blue flowers on a bridge embankment near Windsor leisure centre . :)
the slower you go the more you see

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #698 on: 06 March, 2014, 01:07:29 pm »
Bumblebees yesterday. Crocuses all out in our garden.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Signs of Spring
« Reply #699 on: 06 March, 2014, 07:02:02 pm »
You just reminded me I saw a solitary bumble bee yesterday  :)
the slower you go the more you see