Spring did Sprung as I Ran through Farndon

I knew it would be today, and I said so too!

I celebrated the shiny blue skies that greeted me this morning with a run out to Farndon, and back along the river. Even at 10am, out of the occasionally cold Northerly wind, it was still rather warm, and I was out running minus my jacket for the first time in a while, and thus felt rather less anoraky.

It wasn't long before I saw my first butterfly of the day, and indeed throughout my run I saw brimstones and small tortoiseshells. It is interesting the compare their flights; the tortoiseshell wafts about a bit, while the brimstone is a purposeful and direct flyer even into the wind.

There were a few peacocks around too, and a solitary speckled wood flushed as I ran through Willow Holt reserve. I was hoping to see the wonderful displays of wild garlic you get in the trees at the Holt in spring, but still a bit early in the season; the Holt is still in winter colours, a lush mixture of greens with succulent looking mosses covering any loose wood providing nesting material for birds.

As shall be seen, buzzers and flutterers were hard to photograph today, but not impossible. It was already warm enough for them to be active and they were restlessly hunting out food plants. Likewise, the bumblebees.

After following the river back into town, watching the warm weather cruisers churning up the water in their vanity palaces - one character decided to pull a few Formula 1 style doughnuts in his boat - I ran through the park, where at least four chiff chaffs were engaged in a singing contest. I noticed that the bird boxes in the oak wood had customers; a pair of blue tits were gathering nesting material for their new home and I managed to capture them at a distance.

A cup of tea at Rumbles made for a pleasant end to my 11km run, but oh no, I wasn't done yet...

Si

Daffs and celandine provide a colourful entrance to Farndon village

A thick carpet of Celandine in Farndon churchyard. A good year for them.

Old gravestones

First cowslip of the year!

Moss at ground level

Power, and power

The glittering river

Blue tit on new home

Passing in nesting material

One of the nesting birds came rather closer, luckily