Friday 18 April 2014

first apple blossom and first cuckoo


The apple blossom is just starting to open on our crab apple tree and yesterday (17th April) I heard the cuckoo for the first time this year. This is about a week early, we usually hear it for the first time 24th - 30th April. At least after flying all that way from Africa, there is nice weather to celebrate the arrival.

I hope these blue skies continue over the holiday weekend. Happy Easter.

2 comments:

VintagePretty said...

It is really nice, in this day and age, that we can still rely on certain signs to herald the start of spring. I heard my first proper cuckoo a couple of years ago in a woods near my mother's house, as they don't seem to frequent any of the areas that I have lived. For me, I rely on hawthorn, ash and oak as a marker of how late/early things are going. I even seem to remember that the old rhyme "ash before oak, we're in for a soak / oak before ash, we're in for a splash" rang true when we lived in Northumberland (we had all of the trees in our back garden, so it was fairly easy to keep an eye on!).

Best wishes,
Tash from vintagepretty.org

willow said...

Yes, Tash, I look at ash and oak when out for a walk. Here the oak is in front although I have noticed that oak trees start to leaf and to lose their leaves in autumn over quite a few weeks. We have lived here for long enough now that I know which are the "early" trees.