Most people are familiar with the sounds of Spring Watch announcing its return to TV each year, with its hidden cameras keeping an eye on the antics of the creatures living in and around the farm site in the south of England. With the glimpses of sun and signs of spring, we decided that we should do our own bit of Spring Watching. Well, not in the sense of Bill Oddie keeping tabs on frog action in the local pond, or Kate Humble spying on badgers, but that is an idea for the future perhaps. Looking around in the hedgerows and gardens, there really is the sense that spring has finally sprung. Of course we won’t be safe in the knowledge that the frosts are gone for a good month yet, but everywhere you look there are many varieties of daffodils nodding their heads in the breeze (perhaps wind would be more accurate, especially for how breezy today has been!) and crocuses opening their petals to the sun, in shades of lavender and yellow, white and deep purple.

Apart from the colourful displays of spring bulbs decorating the towns and villages, I was really pleased over the weekend to find a cluster of frogspawn tucked away in the corner of the pond. It’s good to know that some of the local frogs managed to escape the clutches of the many patrolling cats of the neighbourhood! I always think there’s nothing like the colour and new life of spring to make you feel happier; whether it’s the anticipation of watching those tiny black dots grow bigger, then escape their jelly homes to test the water as tadpoles, until their little limbs develop and they seek out dry land; or the joyous bounding energy of new-born lambs dancing across the fields, or even down to the first unfurling leaves of a willow tree that has stood naked all winter with its whip-like branches hanging about its trunk. (more…)