Another bright sunny afternoon and although I’m in short sleeves, when the breeze picks up it has a nip in its touch.  The cloud is high, thin and wispy and in places, it looks like smoke drifting in from the northeast.  I have just put my jerkin on again and turned the collar up as a large area of cloud looking like cotton wool closes off the direct sunlight for too long.

There are a couple of big oak trees in neighbouring gardens and they have begun filling up with the lovely fresh greenery of new leaves.  I can still see the branches though and on one high branch, a hooded crow strains at its perch to call to its companions in the next tree.  Three hoarse calls but there is no reply, and then they all take off at the same time heading towards the fields by the river.

As soon as the crows have gone, Woodpigeon begin calling, two quite close by, although I cannot see them, and another much further away, its call filling the gaps in the calls of the closer birds.  Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) are so common now, even coming into my tiny garden when I put food out through the winter, although they prefer the ivy berries in the hedge. 

Here is something I wrote a few weeks ago in the early days of spring:

(Spring)

Plucking the last ivy berries

From the top of the hedge –

Three Woodpigeon.

Photo by Ashley

My apologies for the photograph but I only had seconds to capture the scene and the birds would not stay still, falling over each other trying to grab the berries.

I am trying to train myself to write only spring nature-verses when it is springtime and so the above verse is in my spring notebook.  When summer begins, in only a few weeks at the beginning of May, I will open a summer notebook and hopefully find lots of lovely summer things to write about there.

Beside me, I can hear the mumbling buzz of a bumblebee as she extracts nectar from the tiny flowers of Rosemary.  The plant was overlooked last year and now its three-foot spires are covered in delicate lilac flowers.  Lovely!

Photo by Ashley

It’s difficult to believe, but a couple of evenings ago not far from here the temperature dropped to -5.8c and the violas that are in the ground were all touched by the cold.  I was able to protect one small hanging basket moving it into the garden shed and today their lovely flower faces are enjoying this spell of warm sunshine.  And so am I.

Photo by Ashley

Enjoy what’s left of spring and stay safe.