Ill wind

Back from a very snowy holiday in Norway.  Meanwhile, what fell as snow in Scandinavia fell as rain in the UK, resulting in even more severe flooding in places.  The flooding isn’t a problem here high on the wolds, but there was also a very major gale last weekend, which is another matter in an exposed location like ours.  The ash trees around the garden’s perimeter shed the usual load of small firewood (some of it larger than usual), but we also gained a number of bigger logs from a huge old ash tree in the middle of the village which was badly damaged and needed major surgery as a result.

A posy of violets and Cyclamen coum

The temperatures have continued to be mostly mild, though, with no real cold in sight (yet …), and between the rain storms and showers there has been bright sunshine.  The snowdrops and winter aconites are in full flow, as are the hellebores, Cyclamen coum and the earliest crocuses, and the winter shrubs are also lapping it up.  There are buds on some of the daffodils, and other early spring plants are putting out tentative flowers: the pulmonaria, bergenia, comfrey and violets.  So too, unfortunately, are the earliest weeds like bittercress.  Some plants don’t seem to have stopped for winter; there are a few tatty flowers on last year’s calendulas, and the potted red chrysanthemum on the patio, which threw out a couple of small flowers in December, hasn’t bothered to drop its leaves.  The ‘Whitewell Purple’ crocuses at the bottom of the garden have settled in well and proliferated very satisfactorily, although some of them are uncomfortably close to the lawn edge (or maybe the lawn has spread, which is quite possible); must remember to move some of them once they’ve died back.  This year they’re making enough of a statement to be seen from the house.

In the veg garden, the shallots have gone in (and a couple of them replanted after something dug them up – animal rather than bird, as it left some droppings as well).  Spring sowing has started in the greenhouse.

The birds are also in spring mode.  We saw a few more birds than usual in Norway, including Siberian tits, a Siberian jay, a pair of dark unidentified hawks (goshawks?) and also a small owl (Northern hawk owl?) watching the world go by from the top of a tree, but it’s good to be back and to see all the small doings of our own birds.  The other day we had a wren poking about in a clump of grass and emerging triumphant with a big fat green caterpillar; a male bullfinch keeping watch while his lady foraged; a robin having a late afternoon bath before going to roost; a goldfinch hanging around the seed container, obviously tempted to try to land on it but unsure of its ability to do so; two song thrushes having a territorial dispute; and a blackbird tentatively trying out a few phrases of song.  Yesterday I accidentally disturbed birds twice: once by stepping out of the back door into a group of partridges, who panicked and flew off, and once by opening a window just as the sparrowhawk was flying through the garden, most effectively (but unintentionally) scaring it away.  And last week we had a woodpecker drumming repeatedly in the big ash tree; neighbours report that they have had two of them, one of which has taken to drumming on a metal radio aerial (in morse code?).