After the long cold and wet of the winter, the thermometer suddenly rose today reaching 11.9 C at the warmest. The sun shone more often than it didn't and bird song was picking up.
The land is still saturated with water and there was much standing in Emthree, with the ponds and pools full and a long puddle on the path around The Waste.
The brightest thing visually was the bark of the birch tree, peeling in orange flakes to reveal the steely white beneath, small horizontal lenticils like subcutaneous worms circumnavigating the trunk and complex 3D black flecks and patterns.
Just behind the old log at the back of Midsummer Pond I noticed a line of some 13 ivy seedlings.
There must be some reason why they are disposed in such an orderly row, but I cannot think what it is.
A bit further away the pendulous sedge (Carex pendula) is starting to grow away after a strong assault by hungry rabbits, while the stinging nettles, despite the cold, have already started into growth.
