Fantastic spring

Gotta love it.  Although it was a cool evening I was not disappointed with my wanderings after work this week.  Its been lovely and sunny (to coin a phrase) and hence everything has been brought on suddenly.

The trees are really greening up and the hedgerows are blotched with the white of the blackthorn.

 Blackthorn

In the woodlands the primroses, wood anemone and lesser celandines have been joined by the star attraction - the bluebells - everyone's favourite and rightly so.  We are very lucky to have such a spectacle of amazing blue in our ancient woodlands.

Bluebells and the yellow of lesser celandine in evening light

Wood anemone

The old grasslands, where the plough or the fertiliser has not reeked its havoc, host a myriad of special plants.  On the limestone, where I was visiting, the violets provide the first purple of the year, with the proud cowslips dotted across sward in clumps or singly.

 Cowslip

 Violets

Where the woodland edge meets the unimproved grassland, and the  capricious primrose can mix with the cowslip, the false-oxslip can sometimes be found.  This is different to the true ox-slip which is a species in itself.

False oxslip

Of course the grassland owes its existance to the hungry sheep which keep it short and this grazing in turn encourages the fabulous diversity of flowers.

I'll leave the last words to the singing robin...