WITH the warmth of the still weak sun on my face and the cheery song and bustling activity of birds all around, the feeling of spring was certainly upon me.

It’s hard to describe that feeling of spring but is defiantly a feeling; it invigorates yet relaxes and certainly has an underlying feeling of hope. It is one of those times that not matter how busy a life you have it is always worthwhile to find time to walk out into a wild place during a sunny moment and just enjoy this springtime feeling.

Despite this wonderful springtime feeling, the landscape was only just a couple of weeks ago gripped in the heart of winter, and neither we nor the wildlife know whether it will return.

This may explain the rather conservative approach the landscape is having to the apparent advent of spring.

There are few wildflowers giving a little colour here and there. The snowdrops this year have been amazing. Elsewhere most of the colour is coming from the sunshine yellow of the celandines that blossom in the damper places. I have even seen the white pink flowers of the wood anemones dappling through the woods but these and a few other attractive blooms are standing proud in an otherwise fairly bleak landscape and as such they are just small tasters of the glory of spring to come.

The full arrival of spring has an impact on the landscape as dramatic as any snowfall. Much of this change is brought on much more at the bequest of our trees and shrubs than by our wild flowers. Over winter, the majority of our woody species had shed their leaves and stood bracing the winter as bleak dark barren silhouettes, adding much to the drabness of winter, but over the next few weeks this will all change, as they throw out leaves and blossom, fantastically invigorating the landscape in which we live.

The first trees to make a real change will be the blackthorn, which will blossom with lovely snow white flowers making many hedgerows come to life.

Hazel are currently flowering but their pale green flowers don’t quite have the presence of the blackthorn, Their country name of lambs tails gives testimony to the way these wind-pollinated flowers dangle in the breeze.

The eruption of the hawthorn leaves in a week or two’s time will have one of the bigger impacts, as this plant will then transform our hedges into a blast of green life.

Other deciduous trees will follow the hawthorn closing the canopies in our woods.

But just before this green canopy closes, some of our most vivid wildflowers will create, what is to me, one of our greatest spring spectacles here in the UK, the carpeting of many of our woodlands in the deep, rich royal blue of the bluebells.

Every day spring brings a new delight to discover in the natural world and I know I will spend every opportunity I can finding time to go out and celebrate one of the most spectacular of changes.