The relatively warm winter followed by a cold wet spring, seems to have been the right conditions to bring out the best show of spring flowers. From early April our road verges, canal, river banks and meadows have been full of shining bright yellow flowers, with tens of thousands of celandines, dandelions, and now cowslips. The wet meadows and ditches are ablaze with king cups (marsh marigolds) soon to be followed by the tall stems of yellow flag iris. Lady smock, also know as the cuckoo or May flower has been showing since mid April, and as I write the first stems of pink campion and ragged robin are appearing. The colour of blossom on the trees seems more intense than ever, and hawthorn and cherry blossom are in profusion. One of the best shows of flowers I’ve seen locally, are the blue bells at Burton Mere wetland, just along the Wirral. The colour and depth of bluebells is just amazing and wonderful to see.

Locally our birdlife has more than met expectations, with many more migrant warblers than usual. There are good numbers of chiff chaff, black cap and sedge warblers, even willow warblers have made an appearance, the first for many years. The first sand martins and swallows were seen in mid April, followed by fewer house martins. Four swifts were first seen on May 1st, earlier than usual in the area, but the highlight has been the appearance of a short-eared owl which has been present at Hockenhull for at least two weeks, one of several seen in the Gowy corridor this spring. I had the wonderful experience of seeing three barn owls and the short eared owl flying one evening whilst I was listening to a tawny owl hooting in the poplar plantation.

Butterflies have been scarce in the wet and cold conditions of April, but small tortoishell, comma, peacock, orange tip and brimstone were all seen flying in Quarry Lane, at the bend with Faulkners Lane on a warm Sunday afternoon in mid April.

Our Christleton swans, nesting on a canal bank garden again this spring, are reported to be sitting on 9 eggs, so if all goes well we should have the excitement of a good number of cygnets hatching in mid to late May.