Last month we saw some spring-like weather followed by more frosts and snow. As we move into March, it is certainly starting to feel a bit more like spring. Mudchute is looking much greener and we have been watching the first flowers of the season. Cherries, plums and their relatives are bursting into blossom and bulbs including snowdrops, daffodils and crocuses are breaking free from the once frozen ground with their flowers and foliage. Animals who hibernated through the winter are beginning to stir as well.
On warm days, butterflies and bees can be spotted taking advantage of the early blooms. We haven’t spotted any amphibians yet, but frogs, toads and newts will soon be making their way to our ponds to spawn, and they aren’t the only ones that will have mating in mind. For many local bird species it is time to start planning for the upcoming breeding season. The mornings are increasingly filled with song as blue tits, great tits, robins, thrushes and other songbirds establish their territories, fend off rivals, attract mates and explore prospective nest sites (we hope a few will move into the lovely new bird boxes that have gone up around the park and farm!). More photos of some of these early blooms and greenery in the gallery on the next page.
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- Snowdrops have been flowering throughout the end of February.
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- Plums, cherries, blackthorn and their relatives are full of blossoms at the start of spring. These blooms precede their foliage.
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- Crocuses in the sunshine.
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- Like the hazel, alder trees have separate male adn female flowers, these fluffy yellow catkins are the male flowers, covered in pollen.
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- The bright white blossoms of plums and their relatives will soon be followed by bright green foliage.
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- Crocuses store energy in bulb-like modified stems called corms, giving them a head start at the start of spring.
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- Garlic Mustard or Jack-by-the-hedge is an important food plant for caterpillars, such as the small white, green-veined white and orange tip.
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- Mosses are reproducing at this time of year as well, with sporophytes on raised stalks.
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- The primrose is one of the early flowers typically associated with the start of spring.
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- The first of our daffodils are flowering with many more on their way.
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- A bright yellow buttercup flowering unusually early in the season.
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- While looking for plants in flower, we even managed to spot this unexpected daisy!
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- Cow parsley provides much of the lush green undergrowth and is beginning to flower already. These tiny white flowers are a valuable food source for a wide range of invertebrates.
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- This tiny red bud-like structure is the female flower of the hazel. It is pollinated by wind which blows pollen from the male flowers, called catkins.
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- New foliage and early buds of hawthorn.
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- Snowdrops in flower.
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- Violets are thriving in the woodland and in full flower.
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- Plums, cherries and their relatives can be found in blossom throughout the park and farm.
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- The fluffy yellow catkins are the male flowers of the hazel. Wind carries pollen to the tiny red tuft-like female flower visible on the left.
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- A bracket fungus, growing on dead wood.
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- Bulbs such as these lie behind many of the early spring plants, allowing plants to store nutrients during dormant periods.
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