“She turned to the sunlight and shook her yellow head, and whispered to her neighbor...winter is dead.” ...

It's only nine days since I was last sat here writing up a blog entry but those days have been almost exclusively filled with sunshine-what a difference it has made to nature, the countryside and my mood!

A note of caution, we are promised a return to frosts and low pressure shortly, for now though, things are really starting to move on apace. First thing of note is that our local Blue-tits seem to be interested in taking up residence in one of the nest boxes again this year.

There are two boxes that have been used but this seems to be their favourite. T'other one was preferred, until I decided one year to fit a camera inside to allow me to observe the young, since that day, it hasn't been considered.

The cherry tree at the front of the house is in full flower now and alive with honey bees, the sound is amazing...here's a snap, sans bees...

There are also sunny daffodils everywhere right now; here's a short clip of a few swaying in the wind in slow motion...

(A reminder here about these videos only showing in the online version and not the e.mailed one)

On a walk through the local countryside the other day I spotted this new grass growth-what a colour, I couldn't resist a shot...

Yes, there's little doubt that England is entering one of the most exciting times of year for not only the creatures that I love to seek out but for any of us that enjoy nature in all its forms. Today is officially the first day of spring and the sap is definitely rising! Well, it seems to have done so for this tree, it appears to have taken a bit of a detour en-route though...

Joking aside, I have no idea what might have caused this strange deformed growth but yet again, just had to photograph it.

Back in the garden, I have been trying to photograph springtails again. I have featured these little creatures before in my blog and you may remember that they are only tiny and as such create problems as far as getting detailed photos goes. 

Well I have discovered a species in the water barrel that is even smaller than those I have previously been seeing. To give you an idea of size, take a look at the picture on the left here.

I have marked the width of the rim of this little dish and inside the red circle is a teeny black dot. Actually, that is one of the springtails before getting the macro lens on it to try and show some detail.

The next photograph shows how surprisingly well marked they are..

This was photographed at x5 but even then didn't fill the frame and so a crop was required; I really want to try and get even closer if I can as cropping loses detail.

Something completely different now. I had an afternoon 'birding' recently-just around the local fields and woods and took a few photos but.....as sometimes happens, one that I 'messed-up on' by shooting into the sun, somehow had an appeal of its own when I saw it on the computer and so, I messed around with it a little more! And here's the result for better or worse, you decide...

Okay, just as proof that I can manage "normal" shots as well...

The robin was really interesting to watch actually, I saw a pair exhibiting courtship behaviour, with the male feeding the female. Apparently this is clear evidence that they are in the early stages of nesting.

Robins spend a lot of time on the ground foraging for their food...

Before I bring this update to a close I should add that as yet, there has been no change to the cocoon that featured in the last update.

I'll wind up this entry with yet another of those moments when I have been left speechless by nature. The bee pictured below (and special mention must go to my good friend Tim Ransom and his 'bee expert' chums who identified it for me) was absolutely loaded to the gunnels with pussy-willow pollen to an extent I have never seen before...

Andrena praecox

And so, as I always say...'until then next time...'

Underneath the ice, something stirred...

Having started the week with white-stuff a'plenty.....

...it was nice to see a thaw revealing some greenery again as the week went on. The snow is great and very pretty but this is 'England's Green and Pleasant Land' and our 'greenness' is what makes Kent  special.

By Wednesday, the countryside was looking like this..... 

As the thaw took hold things began to melt quite fast-at the bottom of the garden (or 'yard' if you're in the U.S.) there's an old butlers sink that doubles as a little pond. It's not much, but holds just enough water to encourage a few extra bugs and insects into the garden.

I lifted a slab of ice that covered the entire water surface from the sink and I guess was around 40mm thick to discover underneath a few bits of debris that had I suppose been in the water, but had now become stuck to the ice.

Amongst these I was very surprised to find something moving. I grabbed my camera and once I got the macro on this tiny, dark object, I could see that it was a damselfly nymph...

I hadn't realised that there were damselflies in the pond until now but even more amazing was that this little one survived the ice.

The other thing I spotted was this tiny creature...

I am fairly sure this is a water flea (Daphnia?) I wouldn't want to attempt a closer identity than this because, for instance, if it is Daphnia, this genus alone contains 150 species.

My first flying insect of the year appeared on the window one morning after heavy rain. I think it's a midge of some kind?

Having found the damselfly nymph I decided to check out the water barrel in another corner of the garden. This is a good spot for finding springtails and I wondered how they had survived. They ought to have done well as they can cope with very low temperatures.

I was expecting to find the usual globular springtails, but actually only spotted this one which I think is probably Vertagopus arboreus...

Vertagopus arboreus?

Out in the field I have struggled to find much of interest through the recent bad weather but there are signs of spring now and just today I saw a number of green leaf buds on trees.

I was also really pleased when I spotted this wild daffodil close to opening already...

It seemed to me that there must be a connection between finding this first daffodil of the year on the very day that would have been the birthday of a good friend I lost a year ago, called 'Daph'.

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On one recent outing, I did come across these little eggs... 

I thought maybe these were snail eggs at first. I was basing it mainly on their resemblance (although obviously smaller) to my African Land Snails. The other thought was possibly slug? I dismissed that idea because I have found slug eggs before and they have always been transparent.

Having had my curiosity aroused I decided to take a few home to observe. I didn't have long to wait because a few days later I was wishing that I hadn't dismissed slugs so quickly...

O.K. so my initial guess at an identity proved to be wrong but I now think that perhaps slug eggs are transparent until they are close to hatching when the colour of the slug becomes visible. If that's a load of falafel, then I would like to submit to the court that my second guess was right!

Of the few evergreen trees I noticed that there seem to be a large number of Holly that have been affected by the holly leaf miner...

The story of the little leaf miner is quite complicated but I've added a small diagram below showing the basics, then I'll add a link to a full explanation at the bottom of this blog post should you want to explore it further.

Ah, you see...I may be getting older but I'm not getting senile yet! If I add the link here, you'll be off to read that instead of completing my blog entry won't you.

In the same woods as I found the holly, I saw this very strange tree. I have added a version of this to my flickr page but it's one that I've added a sort of HDR effect to, this one is the original...

It looks a bit gruesome don't you think? As if it's been mortally wounded.

By way of compensation, I'll end this update with a 'pretty in pink' photo! This is a horned tree hopper that I photographed last summer in amongst the pink willow-herb flowers...

That's it then, until the next update.....

Link to the leaf miner life cycle in full