I think we can officially say farewell to winter in our garden. It was been a week or 2 of change amongst our garden plants and animals, and most have already got their spring caps on. I do love the look of our spring garden, with the blossom on the trees, flowers coming out, and birds singing their spring song. The blossom on the trees has got to be my favourite part of the winter-spring transition, and our apricot tree is now completely white with the stuff.
Blossom covers the branches and stands out in the garden. Its sometimes difficult to spot the birds in the dense blossom, especially the Blue Tits. The fat feeder put in there in February is completely lost from view!
The blossom forms in clusters on the thin branches of the tree.
The colour of the blossom is quite amazing. The bees are definitely attracted to it and have been seen in large numbers on flowers like the one below.
Blossom is still emerging on the more shaded side of the tree, but will not take long to come out with the fantastic weather we have had over the last week or so.
Some of the leaves are starting to come out on our apricot tree too, and I am sure it won't be long until the tree turns from white to green. We have found that our pet rabbits love to eat these leaves, so once they have all grown fully, we will definitely pick a few for them. Once the tree is covered in trees, it really is hard to see the birds in the tree, especially the Greenfinches! The leaves make the tree look bigger and, come the summer, the apricot tree will be a fairly large tree, about 9-10 years after it was planted.
The slow worm is maybe not necessarily an animal associated with spring but I saw it today under our sand pit, so I thought I would take a picture and inculde it in this post. Whilst the slow worm isn't a "springy" animal, it reminded me that the lizards will start to become seen again in the early summer. They are such strange animals, as I noticed when I watched it. I think a look in the compost heap would reveal more slow worms, and maybe some other creatures too. 
Recently, my dad bought 2 young apple trees which have already been planted in the garden in 2 different places. There is something very pleasing about planting a tree, especially if you get to see it grow, like I have done with the apricot tree. We do already have an apple tree at the end of our garden, and it has been very good for the birds recently, as we have a feeder hanging off one of its branches. I wonder how long it will take for the new trees to grow to the size of the older apple tree.
Maybe the fork in the apple tree branch seen below will be a possible nesting site in the future when the tree is fully grown?
Whilst I was outside in the sun this afternoon, I noticed that the Rhubarb plant in our garden is growing very fast. Last year, it grew so big that it covered the path to the right of it. Hopefully, some of it will get eaten before it happens again this year. The underside of the large leaves provide a good habitat for some of our garden insects. It may be a while until we see those yet though.
I can imagine that some of the northern England and Scottish gardens may be behind in the winter-spring change, but I am sure it won't be long. Unfortunately, our Blue Tit pair have chosen our conservatory nestbox instead of our camera nestbox this year :-( I had a quick peek in the nestbox today (without disturbing the birds) to see a nearly complete nest. Some of the flowers in my wildlife patch are now starting to emerge, and I may post on that soon. But for now, I wish you all a happy spring- at last!
Top: slow worm from google images
