Norfolk Nature: Spring 2026 Part 2.

 SPRING 2026: Part 2

Spring is a more elastic season than perhaps it's given credit for. The first signs of light - soaring raptors, birdsong and blossom, the hardy celandines and crocuses poking their flowers skyward - are greeted with such relief after the dregs of winter that thoughts often leapfrog  to summer abundance. Spring moves at an average speed of 1.9mph across the UK from March, temperature depending, from the SW to the NE, although there are individual speeds for various natural events. While the bullace has bloomed already, and bird cherry and blackthorn have flared in the hedgerow, the hawthorn drumsticks are popping on the branches, beating out the season's rhythm and building to its finale: that first great flush of flowering set against blue skies, and the lush, bright, green-and-white understorey of cow parsley and alexanders which is never quite replicated in the rest of the year. Hawthorn blossom spreads nationwide at an average speed of 6.3mph, laying the trail of landing lights for the spring migrants in the later stages of April and sets the seal on spring. 

It is now late April and the first swallows have returned to the village; not in the numbers they were wont to do but all the more prized and welcome for it. They perch on the wires and dash down with the later-arriving house martins to small puddles at the field's edge, picking up mud to repair last year's nests.

A string of sunny days and chilly nights has brought out more of the flowers in the garden - the first rose and the early iris accompanied by some bright blossom on last year's new addition, a dwarf pear. 

The emblematic hawthorn is busy unpacking its petals and the snowy boughs are 'heaped with may', the blossom so beloved of  A.E.Housman in his poem 'A Shropshire Lad', with a goldcrest pushing its spray of tiny notes out from the pine tree above it.

Goldfinches, greenfinches, blackbirds, robins and blue tits are busy with nesting materials and beakfuls of grubs for the first chicks in the privet hedge, dropping down to the pond for a brief respite, and the songs of the returning warblers - whitethroats, willow warblers and blackcaps - are filtering through the new leaves at the back of the garden. 

The first butterflies are enjoying the warmth. Holly blues, like small chips fallen from the cloudless sky, green-veined whites and commas are among the earliest to nectar on the comfrey that lines the spring garden, and are less flighty than the fast-flying brimstones and orange tips.

The moths have been more reticent, with the cold nights persisting, but there have been some decorating the trap with their beautiful markings, notably the lunar marbled brown and the streamer.

The emperor moth though, is simply spectacular, with the males flying during the day. Four came to the lure on a sunlit afternoon, circling the garden at great speed before landing in a splash of exotic colour.