Daisies! (two) - Spring!

Sycamore and hawthorn budbursts today – just.
Bluebell leaves pushing through – just.
Daffodils nearly flowering.
Snowflakes blowing through on the NE gale all day.
Snow on the hills.
Masses of frogspawn (twelve more frogs since the heron's visit).
A confused spring – nothing new then

It's cold and wet and snowy and we haven't got any frogspawn

B - Ahh, Spring, even in it's confused state it's amazing.

Yesterdays count
4 Hares
First 2, then one sitting on a rise,
And then another running!
One heron standing
A buzzard or two
3 tractors.

Two buzzards being mobbed by a murder of crows. Song thrush singing fit to bust (on another thread too!). Still no daffs open, but there are some along The Road which have a sunnier aspect than our north-easters.

Oh Bags crows are so fiesty at this time of the year. Our daffodils are in full bloom. I've added a photo of the Well Boat in my album. For some reason it's at number five. The fry, from the fish farm on the hill, are transported by helicopter to the boat, after which, they are taken elsewhere to mature.

Butty I've only ever seen two Hares. They were sparring in the nearby glen.

I love that collective ' A murder of crows'. It's wonderful. I'm very impressed with our wild crocuses. Every time the snow melts, there they are bright and defiant.

Drove past a flooded valley floor this morning - a beautiful mini-wetland - and saw 5 herons puddling around having brunch. Probably up to their knees in tadpoles.
''Free food'' I thought, as I'd just spent far too much stocking up in the supermarket. Nice and dry though.

'Our' heron was jabbing away at the bank of the pond this morning. It wasn't a part where the frogspawn is thick, so I wondered if it was trying to 'coax' an adult frog out of the mud. ??
It could have been eating spawn. I couldn't tell from its expression. But it did give me a dirty look for watching it from an upstairs window, before it flew off to the field.

There won't be much meat in those frog eggs yet.

Oh wait! There must be because how else would the froglets grow? Hmm. Just like bird eggs then, natural high protein food.

Lots of globulin bags and some albumed

Even some albumen

Of course. Maybe it isn't just caffeine my brain needs today!

I'm slumming on the orange juice before it goes out of date!

My bird feeder is greatly in demand today. The dunnock is bak and forth on the seed, the robin on the cheese, the pigeon on anything he can reach, the grat and blue tits on the fatballs and a juvenile male blackbird.

Back great,

A feast for the birds!

Huge flakes of snow falling artistically past the window.

Songthrush mornings They were late starting this year. There is a spattering of snow on the ground again this morning. Just a spattering. But the dawn daymark is north of east already and the sun's rays nearly make it to the northwest corner of my bedroom. Love the light mornings.

Uplifting.

The collar doves are courting again. The bird feeder is quiet, so I assume my neighbour has more enticing seeds in hers. A pair of goldfinch spent a long time on mine yesterday though. In Dundee, my sister's feeders had every kind of finch - siskins, green, gold, chaff and bull.

The wood pigeons are romancing each other today. I have to laugh because they are so clumsy, and pick branches that don't hold their weight, so they can be heard crashing through the trees on occasion. I love spring