Spring has Sprung!

 

My post of 10th March bemoaned the fact that there was very little sign of spring in the UK woodlands.  However, I can now report that these signs have arrived and furthermore I can declare winter over and spring has now sprung (despite what others define as the official date for the first day of spring). 

I can base this reasoning on several facts. Firstly, bluebells are pushing their way through the woodland floor and catkins are becoming visible on the trees. This last week has been quite warm with temperatures in the teens, culminating in a glorious early spring day, yesterday, with bright sunshine. I recorded the temperature at 3pm as 15 degrees C. My humble calculations suggest that spring in the UK has arrived this year about 3 weeks later that last year.

On Sunday morning I went ‘bird-catching’ (as I call it) with Big Dave and Ken who is an official bird-ringer for this part of Essex. While I was there they ringed 2 Great tits, a Dunnock, a tree-creeper, a chiff-chaff and a couple of blackbirds. I’ll describe the process and a little bit more about bird-ringing in a separate post.

The second spring fact is that there is much more bird activity which may be an obvious sign of spring but there are also a couple of facts that you couldn’t tell unless you were involved in bird-ringing.

 

The first is that a number of birds caught (particularly Dunnocks) have been recorded during the winter in gardens. Now the warmer weather has arrived with the additional availability of food, they have now moved to the more natural woodland areas. I think that fact speaks for itself .

Also, the female birds caught have now begun to show a brood patch. This is where the feathers have thinned out on the female bird’s underside which will shortly be engorged with blood vessels. This will assist in incubating the eggs by providing additional warmth.

The second part of Sunday was spent in Lowt’s wood. Apart from bird activity, it was quite quiet. I almost stumbled on a single fallow doe and and later a muntjac but that was about it. There was quite a lot of squirrel activity as they chased each other around the tree trunks.

The final reason I know spring is here is by my own reaction to spring in the the UK woodlands. After lunch I fell soundly asleep on the woodland floor!

Thanks for the visit.