Spring?

Back home after our skiing holiday (wildlife highlight: huge herd of wild reindeer crossing the mountains a few miles away).  In the UK February has been cold but mostly dry, apparently, and there has been at least some wind, to judge from the fallen twigs from the ash trees.  The garden looks much the same as when we left (snowdrops, aconites, rather more cyclamen coum and the hellebores coming out), but there's a much more springlike feel to everything.  Maybe it's the light; when the sun came out on Saturday there was a touch of warmth in it, and it was an early spring sun rather than a winter one.

The birds have also returned.  Strange how they seemed to disappear for a couple of weeks after the snow melted; but they're back now.  Even casual bird-watching on Saturday racked up a good number of species: all the usual tits (blue, great, coal and marsh), finches (chaffinches, greenfinches and at least two goldfinches - maybe more, as there was a largish flock of finches in the big ash tree a couple of times, with much of the sweet twittering that goldfinches do), a nuthatch, two robins, a wren, blackbirds, song thrush, starlings, sparrows and dunnock.  Groups of partridge and the occasional pheasant are also around.  Nesting may be starting; a song thrush was having a good soak in the pond, and a female blackbird was bathing busily too (nesting is a dirty job).  The smaller birds have revived their interest in the seed container, which is now emptying daily again - probably another sign of them being busy sorting out partners, territories and potential nest sites.

Since our return the weather has been quite mixed: pleasant on Saturday, murky on Sunday and sunny for the last couple of days, with some quite cold nights.  The forecast is for a few damp days this week.  I hope the weekend is dry - there's a lot to get on with in the garden!