With spring officially underway, is it my imagination or are wild flowers and blossom even more vibrant than usual? Perhaps they seem so to us after enduring a long, colourless, wet wild windy winter.

Daffodils and crocus are a delight. Pink and white cherry, forsythia and magnolia brighten gardens and a surge of green leaves are bursting forth.

Then there is the simple beauty of a wild primrose, its pale yellow petals blending perfectly with brimstone butterflies alighting to feed on nectar on sunny warm spring mornings. Our longest lived species, brimstones will be with us throughout the spring right up until late June.

Early morning birdsong grows stronger daily. Two local blackbirds compete. Around 4am, one of them utters an alarm call before commencing his recital. Sadly, the songthrush has not performed since the first severe storm just prior to Christmas.

Dunnocks are major players this spring. Very understated 'little brown jobs', their song consists of a rather wren-like loud high-pitched torrent of hurried jumbled notes delivered as if they are a little embarrassed and wish to get it over with as quickly as possible. Chaffinches are in fine voice too.

My garden pond frogs began spawning on 3rd March, about a week earlier than in last year's cold March and newts are returning to the water after hibernating in some sheltered spot.

The warm sunshine will tempt ladybirds, early bumblebees and assorted flies to appear and even as I write, swallows are beginning their hazardous flight northbound to arrive here next month.