Signs of Spring

Signs of spring are finally beginning to show up.  A flight of swans honked their way past our village a couple of days ago, the snow had melted away from a bank of earth next to the road, temperatures are up above 0° C, sometimes even at night, and there's been a little rain, mixed in with the latest snowfalls.
I walked along the disused railway today, using the snow scooter tracks. I sank in 2 or 3 cm with every step because even the hard packed snow is softening up now.  This picture was taken around 5 o'clock this afternoon and the sun is still higher in the sky than the noon sun is at midwinter.
This tree is growing in the middle of a field, out of a pile of stones collected together when the field was relatively new.  The hill behind was de-forested about ten years ago.  The majority of the new pine and fir trees are still mostly under the snow so it looks fairly bare just now.
When I set out on my walk it was still grey, and raining slightly, but as I set off the cloud started to break up and within 20 minutes it looked like this.  Sometimes you get lucky!