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I was beginning to think winter would never end but spring is definitely here now. There are broody hens aplenty, ducks sitting on eggs and the geese are laying again. I'm even pleased to see the weeds growing in the veggie patch.
There is loads of work to do up at the lottie but this is what we live for isn't it? The possibilities of what we can create by getting our hands dirty. I love it!

Spring has indeed sprung! What a great time of year!



Wulf

I must 'fess up to really enjoying this spring - more than any others I can remember! The last Winter just seems to have dragged on - more than usual I think. One of the reasons it seems so much closer is the fact we've got the mother & toddler group from the cattle herd down on the farm - which means 10+ little calves running around the place playing bucking bronchoes and charging around the fields - very, very "springy".

With luck this year will see us with much bigger harvests and yields - and perhaps me and the wife will finally move out of the in-laws and into our own little cabin!

And we've got a woodpecker in the woods behind the house again! There always used to be a pair - it dispappeared two years ago, and now I hear them pecking again... (Hammering, more like it. Well, everybody has their own way of showing their joy at spring.)

AND I'm finally getting the kitchen painted. Must be something to do with spring (or the fact that I've got an aunt coming to visit tomorrow...)

i love woodpeckers - we had some that used to eat the nuts right outside the kitchen window at Herefordshire. Could stand and watch for hours and I got some lovely pics too YAY! It was lovely when they brought their babies over to feed too.

Spotted one in the old tree across the road last year but not seen him since.

Saw the swallows day before yesterday - lovely to see them back, although there are only the odd one or two as yet.

the red legged partridges that were flocking together over winter have all now paired up and you see two at a time - and the smaller birds are having a field day collecting up all the fleece from the sheep that shed their wool on the field opposite.

The catkins are forming on the willows too - I just love those.... saw one in garden centre yesterday that looked particularly lovely but was expensive. I did take some pity on some old overgrown plants that were in the bargain bucket though!!

We've had a couple of Woodpeckers around the place. Where we live is mainly heathland with the occasional woods around the place. Green woodpeckers are rife, but I was very surprised to find this fellow beating up my bird table a few weeks ago...


RE Partridges, they're not my favourite birds at present! Several times they've done a crazy mating call at 0530 - right outside my bedroom window. This leaves me wide awake, and in a particularly grumpy mood for the remainder of the day. Damn birds. Not popular in Chateau Batfink present!

Ah, yesterday was lovely, the temperature hit 21C (70F) and I even stripped off to a T-shirt although I've still got my woolly socks on!

We've got Mr and Mrs Woody Woodpecker on the peanuts and bird feeders all the time now - they even went and picked off all the bark on my rustic arch into the veg patch - little buggers.

Lots of things are flowering and the trees are turning green. I love Spring!

Best of all there are flower buds on the wisteria this year now that my husband has at last learned how to prune it properly!

I've got robins nesting on my windowsill!! About 18 months ago I bought a nesting box for robins but I never got around to deciding where it should go, so it just sat on the windowsill right by the back door. Last week I saw a robin flying to it several times with grass in its beak. As I went back into the house I surreptiously checked...and there was a nest there!

Then...yesterday...the robin stayed in the nest as I walked past (before she'd always flown guiltily away whenever I came out of the back door). She comes out of the nest occasionally to be fed by her mate, but other than that she seems to be permanently sitting in the nest...looking anxiously (though increasingly less so) at me and my lodger, but she seems reasonably happy that we're not going to attack. We're trying to give the box as wide a berth as is possible...bearing in mind its location! Baby robins! :)

Alcina

Robins can be quite friendly - my parents had one a year or two back that would come and feed out of your hand (amazingly delicately).

Best wishes to your robin-lodgers!

Wulf

Yesterday was lovely here and I even had to get changed into shorts ( ) and T-shirt. Don't worry all you envious people because it is due to rain today!

Anyway there were lots of butterflies around yesterday - the first Cabbage White (grrrr but no cabbages here so nah nah ne-nah na ), first Orange Tip and one I hadn't ever seen before, but my husband very handily had his camera at the ready so took a photo and later I identified it as a Wall Brown. I think I have spotted about 10 different butterfly species so far this spring - must go and make a list!