Lambs

Just over a month ago, it all started kicking off in the garden. Now spring seems to be full swing.  The gardens are blazing with daffodils, primroses and all sorts of other spring flowers.  Blackthorn is out and pink blossom is everywhere.
 

Watercolour of spring flowers.

A fox or two has visited most nights and we have had another visit from the badger. We have had all sorts of butterflies including peacock, small tortoiseshell, yellow brimstone, comma and red admirals.

Best of all, while driving round the Uckfield bypass this morning, I saw lambs. Spring really is here.

Sketch of ewe and lambs.

March 2013 - Garden visitors

In an earlier post, I noted the number of garden visitors I captured on my Bushnell trail camera over February.  Below, I've summarised the visits in the camera captured during the 9 nights I had it out in March. I've allocated each visit to a 2 hour slot as shown below.

Animal visits while the camera was out in March 2013.

The total number of visits (excluding cats) is down from 23 to 14. I am excluding cats from the grand totals because cats visit day and night and I don't often have the camera out in the day time. However, I am including them on the graph because I am interested in when they visit and their encounters (if any) with our wild visitors.

So what have I noticed?

1. Fewer visits by wild mammals. The number of visits was to nearly half - some but not all of this can be accounted for by the camera being out for about for 9 rather than 12 nights. Maybe the rest is down to the unrelenting cold weather.
2. Peak visiting time has shifted from the 11pm - 1am slot to 1pm - 3pm GMT.
3. We have badgers!
4. Most visits are foxes.

One of our foxy visitors near our daffodils.

Although it has been bitterly cold this month I can see that, comparing this month's photo with February's, the daffodils have grown from a couple of inches of leaf to their full size, including a few flowers.

Spring Equinox - green shoots?

Well Spring's arrived - allegedly.

It's less than 2 weeks ago I was crowing about "spring becoming an unstoppable force". Since then we've had heavy, drifting snow and rain and unrelentingly cold miserable weather. The frog spawn is looking a bit sorry for itself and the daffodils are decidedly confused but ...

Wild arum, bluebell and fritillaria leaves under oak.

... green shoots are breaking through all over. Just a few weeks ago the area below our oak was barren looking mud. Now leaves of wild arum, bluebell and fritillaria are growing rapidly. Maybe, just maybe spring is arriving.

Frog spawn

Give or take some forecasted snow and sub-zero temperatures, spring seems to have become an unstoppable force in the Uckfield area. The number of flowers blooming in the garden has increased from a few shy snow drops to a cascade of daffodils, primroses, hellebores and so many more.

Helebores and snowdrops photographed on 10 March, 2013.

Leaf buds are fattening, blue tits inspecting boxes and the frogs in our Manor Park garden are, at long last, spawning.

I've been keeping rough records for some time and this is the first time that I've noted them spawning so late. Here are the dates I've recorded over the past few years

• 2013 - 6th March
• 2012 - 25th Feb
• 2011 - 20th Feb
• 2010 - 28th Feb 
• 2009 - saw frogs active in pond 18th Feb
• 2008 - saw frogs active in pond 29th Feb
• 2007 - saw frogs active in pond 11th Feb
• 2005 - 19th Feb.

The frogs have produced a reasonable quantity of spawn in a few days.

 Of course, our frogs are not the only ones to have been busy recently. From Twitter, two local people had frogs spawning well ahead of mine:

• Tim Benians (@UckFramingCo) on the 27th of February
• Jenny Bacon (@Metique) on the 1st of March

Jenny is one of a heroic band that make sure that Uckfield's toads get to the pond on the Harlands estate by picking them up, putting them in buckets and carrying them across the roads. This work started around the 6th of March and continued for a number of days.