Spring is Springing

 Spring is in the air (as they say) and the evidence is springing up all over. Even with the Covid restrictions nothing has stopped Spring from doing its thing; albeit up until a few days ago we could only witness a localised Spring. Even so the Spring flowers in our garden are making themselves noticed:

Daffodils in Front Garden

Daffodil Close-up

Mini-Daffs in Back Garden

Cuckoo Flower in Wildlife Patch

Cuckoo Flower (aka Lady's Smock)

Primrose in Back Garden

Primrose

Unfortunately the Bluebells have yet to flower, but they have started to make an appearance (as has the Jacob's Ladder):

Bluebells on their way

Jacob's Ladder starting to grow

In the meantime we have bought a few pot plants to add some colour in the garden, and the Pansies are doing particularly well:

Pansies in planter

Pansy in Hanging Basket

Great little plants Pansies, they look so flimsy but are very tough (and colourful)

Another obvious sign of Spring is that the trees in and around our garden not only have buds but are bursting in to leaf:

Rowan Buds Busting Out

Rowan Bud in back garden

Sycamore tree at the side of the house

Sycamore Buds (it's a Norwegian Maple apparently)

Birch Buds (yet to pop)

Birch Buds and Catkins

Trees in the Square (at the front of our house)

It's not just the plants that are demonstrating Spring activity; we have had a couple of mammals in our garden making a day-time appearance, despite normally being crepuscular or even night-time visitors.

Firstly there was our resident Wood Mouse, who we think lives under our shed:

Wood Mouse below Bird Feeder

Resident Wood Mouse

Wood Mouse Close-up

He is being very bold coming out in the middle of the day, frantically eating and stashing bird seed. He has even been out when I have been standing nearby, which is very unusual for this timid creature:

It was funny when he came face-to-face with a Chaffinch which was also collecting spilt seed, don't know who got the biggest fright.

Next up was a Hedgehog, which we occasionally get in our garden, but normally at night. It strolled through our garden in broad daylight rooting out grubs, worms and insects not bothered by the fact I was following it with a camera:

Hedgehog searching for invertebrates

Hedgehog posing for the camera

Once again I managed to get some video of the exploits of this daylight scrounger:

There was also evidence of night-time action with this (or another) Hedgehog when I noticed some of the plants near my pond in the front garden had been uprooted. I put out my Trail Camera and caught the culprit heading towards the pond:

What about the birds I hear you say! Well they have been preparing for Spring as well.

Some of our common birds are already sporting their breeding plumage, including the finches:

Colourful Male Chaffinch

GREEN Male Greenfinch

We have seen some birds pairing up such as Dunnocks, which are normally solitary birds and I won't tell you what the Wood Pigeons have been up to!

It wasn't me, it was the Wood Pigeons

Some birds have been having a good wash 'n' brush up to look their best:

Starling Having a Bath

In fact our little pond in the front garden has become a very busy place with queues round the block for a bath (or shower)

One Starling has also been checking out the box I have placed on the tree adjacent to our house:

Starling Box for Rent

In fact one such Starling has been advertising for a partner, and defending this box as though his life depends on it:

Ooh! that's gotta hurt!

Moving on to the Blue Tits. For the past few years our resident Blue Tit (Psycho) has over-wintered in our new box in the Birch tree and prevented any other Blue Tits from nesting in it. This Winter there has been no sign of Psycho at all, so we reckon he has either moved on or passed away.

This means for the first time for a few years Blue Tits (and the odd Great Tit) have been checking out our new box; which would be great as it has a camera in it.

Unfortunately in the last week or so they have turned their attention to the old black box that has been hanging on our fence for years. This is what has happened when Psycho was around, so maybe the ghost of Psycho is haunting the new box? ..............needless to say that the old box has no camera in it.

Blue Tit at Old Box

Blue Tit in Old Box

The male Blue Tit (I assume) appears to tap the sides of the hole to attract the female; at first I thought they were making the hole bigger, but it seems not. When the female Blue Tit arrives the male then leaves the box to let the female inspect it. In the last few days I have even noticed them bringing in nesting material:

Blue Tit with Nesting Material

So here's hoping that we will have some Blue Tits breeding in the garden this year.

That's us for another month, hopefully will have something more exciting than what's happening in our garden next month.

Take Care 

Teddyedward (going loco)