REAL SIGNS OF SPRING

Today, Snippet and I went for our first walk of the year that truly felt like spring. For so many months, there has been barely a bird out there, but today, the grass was alive with little spiders, the air full of little flying insects, the odd bee and many, many birds. The sun was shining and, despite slipping over early on and bruising my knee, it was an absolute joy. Even the garden is beginning to show signs of life with many of the hedge trees starting to sprout; not the beech obviously - that will be late May if we're lucky! What follows is a record of everything I managed to photograph. there was a lot that I didn't get: a Wheatear, a couple of Palmate Newts and a trio of Buzzards soaring together.

We started in the garden where Celandine is at last flowering:

Past the big Beech tree on a wall where periwinkle tumbles:

As we walked up the path along the stream onto the moor, I spotted this pheasant; an unusual sight up here and it looked very unsure of itself:

I went to check the place where we put all the rescued frog spawn and saw this toad spawn in the water. Two Newts shot off as I got there so these may not last long. 

On the way over to the stream near the tin shepherd's hut, we saw these lambs. I don't usually see them out on the moor; the farmers normally keep them in fields until they're older.

Then, in the distance, I spotted a mare and foal. Foal D. 

Another dark coloured one. Not black, but after last year's endless skewbalds, it's lovely to see more traditional Dartmoor colours. They were very shy, so the zoom was in action, hence slight fuzziness:

A Meadow Pippet. There were lots and lots of them out today.

A small Tortoiseshell by the stream. Terrible picture - sorry. Zoom rather than macro.I was just amazed to see one at all.

Plant life in the stream. Didn't have time to trawl through books to check what it is.....apologies.

As we walked up the hill away form the stream, I spotted ANOTHER mare and foal. Foal E. Another dark one and enchanting again:

A long walk home again with a few misses again. Only managed to capture another Meadow Pippet:

A cup of Lapsang Souchong and a slice of walnut cake once home. Out again at 3.00pm to feed Trigger. We have a resident Pied Wagtail who joins us at feeding time:

Home again to wait for the school bus. A lovely day including starting a drawing which I'll post about another day. Until next time, here's Snippet today.