Alder catkins

By contrast with yesterday, which was the warmest day for many months, today has been cold, grey and windy - and now the rain's settled in. Consequently most of the day has been spent at home, proof-reading reports.

The brief local dog walk was fairly dank, dark and muddy, and I struggled to find anything of interest to photograph. However, the one bright splash of colour was provided by the alder catkins. I first blipped these on the 10th January (see here) when they were still unexpanded. Just over a month later they are almost out - the long catkins are the males and you can see the reddish anthers under the scales. The small wine-red structures near the top left are the female flowers. which will eventually develop into the characteristic alder cones.

Although the weather has felt more like winter than spring, it's clear that the season is moving on. Both elder and hawthorn have their first tiny leaves, the buds of sycamore and rose are breaking and there are tiny flower buds on the cherry plum. The garden has been absolutely full of birds this afternoon (very distracting while trying to proof-read) including heaps of blue tits chasing each other madly around. There's now an incipient dawn chorus and the local song thrush has at last found his voice. I just hope that we don't get a return to winter weather!