In my corner of Cambridgeshire, as in much of the rest of the UK, spring has finally arrived, though it did so very slowly. 'April is the cruellest month', wrote TS Eliot, and it certainly felt that way, with almost constant northerly winds, chilly days and nights, frosty starts and no rainfall for what seemed like weeks on end. This has culminated in a stormy couple of days at the start of May, but now at last it looks like we are heading into some calmer, and slightly warmer, weather.
Everything in the garden seems to be about two weeks behind where it was last year. I've only just started to pick my asparagus - last year I was happily eating it mid/late April. The crab apple blossom started to open a good fortnight or so later than last year. And although I've seen the occasional swallow when I've been out running or walking, or at the local gravel pits, I've yet to see one from the house.
Nevertheless, the wildlife perseveres, and there has been plenty of courting and nest-building going on.
Out for a run on the first day of spring (March 20th), I heard my first chiffchaff of the year.
And while out running, again, I found my first swallow of 2021 (April 13th)...
We had a visitor to the garden a couple of weeks ago - I sometimes see these out in the fields, and I've caught them very occasionally on my trail cam at night, but this one was happily grazing mid-afternoon.
And to start the month of May off, I had a chilly walk around the fields, which are now eye-wateringly yellow with oilseed rape. A very nice birding tick was a fly-by from a Little egret!
Roll on some warmer weather!
