Four bits of hawthorn hedge today had leaves.
It is still a spectacular year for snowdrops
. 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"?