In Spring a Young Birds Fancy lightly
Turns to thoughts of love to mildly misquote a well known line. The apple tree had just started to produce it's blossom and I noticed the two bluetits who have been busily nest building in one of the nest boxes. One was skipping about and posturing to the other who was perched close by and looking on with presumed admiration. My attention to this gentle and enthusiastic courtship display was interupted with a question about when were we going to do the weeding of the front flower border.

Duck and DucklingsI
I was in the garden resting between bouts of lawn mowing when a loudish "PLOMP" followed by much quacking came from the area of the footpath, and the stile to the field. A mother Mallard was walking up and down the footpath calling; a corresponding cheeping came from the bramble thicket nearby and I managed to see the chick. Within a minute, not one but three chicks came hurrying out onto the path. Mother quacked with satisfaction and went off in the direction of the river with her young. A short way up the path towards the road I heard more frantic cheeping and after a moment another chick appeared; I gently walked towards it to make it follow the mother who by this time was out of sight and once some distance down the path he could hear the mother calling. Looking across our garden from the stile I saw three more chicks waddling across our lawn cheeping away. Back to the garden to shepherd them towards mother who was quite out of sight and hearing by this time. They eventually disappeared into the long grass towards the river.

Later in the week we were at Godalming walking along the wharf where the horse drawn narrow boats are kept, when a mother duck, with a brood of eleven chicks, father duck, and a matronly female swan swam by; we reflected upon the mothering by this little group with the eleven chicks, against the one at the bottom of our garden that went off to the river having produced a brood of seven and was satisfied with finding three and going off.

In the summer the narrow boats will take you down stream and back, through a lock which is peaceful and pleasant (they also do cream teas as you glide along).

Warmer weather at last.
Following the abrupt stop to the cold winter wind, everything in the garden has started franticaly growing, with the early flowering plants coming out all at once.  The bluebells that got a chomping by the Roe Deer  last month have still managed to start flowering with a blue haze that has appeared under the shrubs in the front garden. Together with the yellow of the Forsythia and the Kerria they give a colourful welcome to the spring. There is a huge display of blossom on the fruit trees, If the frost stays away there should be a good harvest in the Autumn.

Butterflies on the wing this month, in our garden, include the tiny Holly Blue who's catterpillars feed on Holly flowers. These are usually seen in July but have emerged from the chrysalis stage early this year as the weather has been mild and warm.

The Brimstone yellow is seen frequently as is the cabbage white, but the most common at the moment is the Orange Tip, a butterfly of early spring. Only the male has the orange tip to its wings. The female is altogether a duller white with grey edges.

I saw a Peacock butterfly that had emerged from hibernation. They can live for almost a year and die after breeding. The resulting generation appear in early Autumn and then hibernate through the worst of the winter weather to start the process all over again.