David

One small corner of Holy Trinity churchyard in Stratford on Avon has patches of wildflowers which flower very early in the year .

In January, there’s winter aconites adding bright yellow. Come March, it’s the turn of violets and lesser celandines, intermixed and showing complementary colours of yellow and purple.

A song thrush searching for food in the short grass under trees in Bantock Park.

At the start of the month, catkins on a pussy willow growing by the lake in West park were just beginning to develop.

Magpies gathering in twos or in small groups high in trees, visible while the branches are still bare of leaves. They may be pairing up rather that surveying their territories.

A tree fallen across the Smestow Brook at Newbridge. Growing from the trunk, directly over the stream, a second generation of fungi. They are velvet shanks.

A male blackbird on the ground in the Paddock, Smestow Valley Nature Reserve. It was the proverbial early bird which had got the worm, and was busy eating it.

In a couple of the the pictures, little bits of bright red can be seen in the short grass. Not carelessly discarded litter, they mark more of the scarlet elf cups.