SpringSpring is the most alive time of the year, a time when every thing starts to happen and it lifts your heart to see life emerging from every corner. Buds are opening and leaves are appearing like a green mist throughout the woods and hedgerows. Days are getting longer and warmer, this increase of light and warmth triggers the growth of leaves and plants. Woodland plants such as Violets, Bluebells and Primrose take advantage of the light that is available under the trees before the dense canopy of leaves shade the woodland floor.
Our winter visitors, such as Fieldfares, Redwings and Waxwings are departing back for there northern homes to be replaced by the heralders of the long warm days of summer the Swallow, House Martin, here shown arriving at it's nest, Chiffchaff, Nightingale and Cuckoo.
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The Peacock butterfly one of the first butterflys to appear can be seen as early as March soaking up the sun together with the Comma butterfly, this one was taken in April.
Birds are all ready nesting, last March 08 I saw a pair of Mallards with eight young chicks on the small lake in the Deer Park near Ashford and Herons nesting in Lyme Wood by the canal at West Hythe.
One of the first flowers to see is the beautiful Snowdrop with it's gracefully drooping head, these like Crocus it has a bulb and sprout afresh each year when the soil reaches the right temperature.
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Mammals such the Hedgehog and Dormice appear from hibernation hungry and looking for food. Amphibians and reptiles are up and about, first frogs and toads in about February and newts in March followed by reptiles. Vipers in April emerge to bathe in the sun and then later look for females who emerge a little later then the males.
Resident birds such as the thrushes are starting to nest before the arrival of our summer visitors who later join in the dawn chorus a treat not to be missed. One of my favourite things to do in early spring is to stand under a rookery watching the rooks repairing there nests, rooks aren't ashamed of helping themselves to twigs from neighbours nests when there away and all this goes on with a great deal of cawing and coming and going.
Trees are bursting into leaf, one of the first is the Horse chestnut it's leaves pushing through it's sticky buds and later to treat us with it's wonderful display of blossom. Catkins adorn Hazel, Alder and Hornbeam not to mention the Pussy willow with it's fat catkins which are such a draw to bumblebees and flies which create a laze hum that can be heard as you walk beneath a Pussy willow.
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By the end of June things have quietened down, bird song has dropped off and the fresh green of spring has matured to a deeper green as we slip into summer.
