With the move into March, meteorological spring has now started and we can talk about flowers and buds with joy. One of the least showy, but most successful spring bulbs round our way are grape hyacinths - you can't stop them it seems and they spread. These window boxes must have been planted up with bulbs at least 7 years ago, and not by us. We do nothing to them, and we certainly don't water them through the summer, yet each spring they produce a magnificent display to cheer us up on even the wettest and coldest of March days.
Daffodils can be a bit tetchy, coming up blind if they aren't treated with a bit of respect or if they are too crowded or if the weather isn't to their liking. This year they are looking rather splendid.
One flower we never seem to have problems with are cowslips, with rosettes turning up everywhere and spreading across any green area they come across. Later in the season, the mutants will start to flower, with orange and red flowers. I believe that there are specific names for those, although I do wonder if they are the result of cross-pollination with the polyanthus that are in every garden. For the moment we are just seeing the early yellow flowers of cowslips however, which are very lovely and a welcome sight.
The hedgerows are white with blackthorn and wild plum blossom, which is gorgeous but makes me worry for the cultivated plum blossom that will arrive soon. So far only the peach is starting to flower, but that is quite well protected and always early. Fortunately the Victoria Plum is not showing any sign of thinking that blossom is imminent, but the mirabelle style plum in the Meadow is a bit more optimistic.
Periwinkle can be a real thug, particularly in the wrong place, but in the Orchard it has to fight for its place. I do love the blue flowers, and prefer the green leaves to the variegated versions.
There is another type of flower that needs my attention at the moment - the sort that is used to decorate the village float for the Comice. It has taken a while to get a Comité des Fêtes reinvigorated, and a theme agreed for the float, but now that is all sorted, it is all hands on deck to make flowers, ready to be stuck on during May and June. With 14 willing participants, the first session on Thursday afternoon went really well and was a very convivial event. We have a way to go though.
There are two trail cameras placed around the ponds to see what wildlife is passing through and next week I will bring one home to check through. While I have been without a camera, I have used a different technology to see what is going on, this time focussing on bird song. The Merlin App by Cornell Labs (others are available) sits on my phone and when there isn't too much wind or noise of motors, I can get a view of who is making a racket around me.
You do have to be a bit circumspect as I am pretty sure the bittern it thought it detected was actually a motorbike misfiring across the valley, but with so many small birds being hard to spot with all the vegetation, it is an eye opener. The list of 47 species below are all those that have been picked up at least once by the app since the 1st January this year. I have doubts about just two on this list - the green winged Teal and the European Turtle-dove, but the rest have made enough appearances for me to be confident they are, or have been, in the zone.
| Brambling |
| Carrion crow |
| Cetti's Warbler |
| Common buzzard |
| Common chaffinch |
| Common chiffchaff |
| Common firecrest |
| Common Wood Pigeon |
| Crested tit |
| Dunnock |
| Eurasian Blackbird |
| Eurasian Blackcap |
| Eurasian Bluetit |
| Eurasian Green Woodpecker |
| Eurasian Jackdaw |
| Eurasian Jay |
| Eurasian Linnet |
| Eurasian Magpie |
| Eurasian Nuthatch |
| Eurasian Siskin |
| Eurasian Skylark |
| Eurasian Wren |
| European Goldfinch |
| European Greenfinch |
| European Robin |
| European Serin |
| European Starling |
| European Turtle-dove |
| Gray Wagtail |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker |
| Great tit |
| Green Sandpiper |
| Green winged Teal |
| Hawfinch |
| House Sparrow |
| Long-tailed tit |
| Mallard |
| Marsh tit |
| Mistle Thrush |
| Redwing |
| Reed Bunting |
| Ring-necked pheasant |
| Rock Pigeon |
| Short toed Treecreeper |
| Song Thrush |
| White Wagtail |
| Wood Lark |
Anyway, that is more than enough for you to think about for the moment, so I leave you with an image of a small mud slide on the road near the Orchard, because, yes, it has been raining this week!
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