Seed-feeding birds, such as Chaffinch and Greenfinch are returning to the garden en masse, their wild food sources diminish through the spring and summer months, which is why we are reminded to feed the birds throughout the year.

Elsewhere a fine bumble-bee collects nectar.

A mile or so down the track of the old Strawberry line, Shute Shelve tunnel runs for 100 yards or so under King John's wood. This ancient wood is economically and lightly managed so the floor is not a manicured swathe of picturesque wildflowers but has an unphotogenic litter of twigs and branches for better support of the native ecology.

In just a few days the woodland floor has turned green with wild garlic shoots and is now dotted all over with wildflowers: primroses, celandines, wood anemones and violets. Here and there, the occasional grouping makes a striking display.

We're on a personal mission to improve our tree identification skills. Last summer we learned to identify ash trees by their leaves, during the winter we were able to identify them by their characteristic sooty-black leaf buds --- and now we find that in spring they have red flowers.

King John's Wood is about a mile away & has some venerable trees, such as this oak which provides shade for delicately-coloured wood anemones and a roosting support for these polypodia ferns.

Periodically, we extend our daily amble along the Cheddar Valley Railway Walk to include the lower slopes of Kings Wood. Now that April is here, we are doing this more frequently as the early spring flowers are beginning to put in an appearance. The wood is open and mature, with some fine trees, the floor is becoming a carpet of green as the Ramsons (wild garlic) get going. We've also been enjoying good views of the birds which are easy to spot at this time of year amongst the bare branches. The best so far have been several Greater Spotted woodpeckers and Nuthatches.

The old railway track runs on an embankment, N/S through the coombe between Cross Plain and Shute Shelve Hill and the slight elevation affords a good view of the valley slopes either side. Part of the western slope is managed by the National Trust and last year they acquired a small herd of British White Park cattle which have spent the winter in the valley.

Spring has definitely arrived - the catkins are out (as are the bees), celandine and primroses line the old railway track. Kings Wood is fast acquiring a green carpet of Ramsons leaves and there are lambs in the big field to the west of the track.

Some of the trees and bushes host interesting lichens. The University of Edinburgh has a useful web page which notes: Lichens have been described as "dual organisms" because they are symbiotic associations between two (or sometimes more) entirely different types of microorganism.

Here we have a gray Parmelia physodes, a foliose lichen and a Cladonia pyxidata which is a squamulose lichen, the erect stalked cups are termed podetia.

Spring continues apace, the first butterfly we usually see is the Comma and this year is no exception. The primroses along the edge of the railway walk have been joined by cowslips.

Quite delightful.

New mobile phone.

I recently updated the mobile phone to one which has a quite capable built-in digital camera, it has macro ability which I used to take these photographs of Sycamore and Field Maple flowers. Not bad results for a phone!