Sring has sprung here in Kent | - Click on the image above to view gallery
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 Busy bumble bee I set myself a bit of a challenge today. I’d not used my macro lens very much the last few months and I needed to brush up on just how the lens works best. I find if you don’t use things all the time it’s easy to forget how the lens has worked best for you in the past. As it’s that time of year when the first signs of the spring are beginning to show what better way to go find some willing subjects to photograph.
I wanted to visit lots of my favourite places that I go to regularly but today I also wanted to see just what was around compared to this time last year. This winter the weather has been much more like a proper winter and I was certain that spring flowers aren’t quite as advanced as last year. My photos certainly confirmed this too but I do know certain places where in the past I’ve see the earliest signs of spring and I was hoping I could get to all those during one day.
I started in the churchyard in Sandwich, mostly to see if the Snowdrops were still in flower. I think this year seems to have been a particularly good year for Snowdrops as I’ve seen many pictures of spectacular displays. Maybe the cold weather at the beginning of February slowed them down a bit and has meant that at the beginning of March there were plenty still in flower. I was taking pictures of Snowdrops in the churchyard on the 8th February last year. I was chuffed to bits to watch the first bumble bees I’ve seen this year too busy collecting pollen from the Crocuses.
 Willow Tree in bud My next place to stop was by the river at Grove Ferry, a place where you can also start a walk around the nature reserve at Stodmarsh. I was actually hoping to see a new foal that has been born recently to the herd of Konik ponies but I must have been walking in the wrong place to see them. Never mind though it was nice to see the reserve in the beautiful sunshine that day. Not many birds are around at the moment however. All the overwintering birds have left to go back to their breeding grounds and it’s too soon for the summer migrants to arrive. Now I know by looking at my pictures from 2008 I was taking pictures on February 12th of Blackthorn in full flower. This year on 2nd March they are still in bud and only just starting to flower. The Willow trees by the river are coming into leaf though. They always seem to be the first trees to do this. I also found some lovely cheery daffodils by the Grove Ferry Inn the first ones I'd see in flower this year I You can't help but feel cheerful when you see them in flower.
Leaving Grove Ferry my next stop would be my favourite woods at East Blean. Now again I can look at my pictures from last year so I know what I saw in flower. I do know some special spots where the first of the spring flowers will be flowering first because they are in warm sheltered spots so I headed to these places while walking my usual route through the woods. It was obvious that the leaf buds on the Oak and Beech trees are swelling nicely ready to burst into leaf in a few weeks’ time and I managed to find some low branches which allowed me some close up pictures. The first of the Lesser Celandine flower on the edge of a nearby field and sure enough the first ones were just where I expected them to be. I also found just a couple of Wood Anemones in flower where this time last year there were patches of them.
 Lesser Celandine  Wood Anenome
My last place to visit was Bishopstone Glen on the coast close to Herne Bay. Now the reason for being here is to look for another small flower that’s one of the first wild flowers to bloom in the calendar year, called Coltsfoot. I know I had found this plant here a few years ago but had never been back since. I walked along the beach and negotiated a particularly muddy section where during the winter months there had been a significant mud slip on these cliffs, which are made of London Clay. I started to question my sanity at going any further on the beach as the sun was getting quite low in the sky but just when I was about to give up I spotted something. Sure enough it was the lovely yellow flower I had come to find. The light of the setting sun was perfect for lighting up the little flower and I was chuffed to bits. I was almost too busy taking those pictures when I realised behind me the setting sun was also going to be worth a picture or two.
It had been a really fun thing to do and although it seems a lot of locations, they are really on a kind of circular route. I think I might do this again as it is easy for me to combine local places in one day and it’s a great way to compare what was happening at the same time last year.  Herne Bay sunset  Coltsfoot
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