David

Peeping out among all the other vegetation, the purple flowers of a vetch – a wildflower member of the pea and bean family,

Comma butterfly spreading and moving its wings to warm itself in the sun. It never quite folded the wings to show the comma mark on the undersides.

Greater celandines, a member of the poppy family. Lesser celandines, which flower somewhat earlier in the spring, are conversely from the buttercup family. It’s hard to spot what they have in common beyond being two of the may wildflowers which have yellow flowers.

Pink campions, like the white-flowered version, are hedgerow plants. Most of the ones I notice are growing beside canal footpaths.

Dunnock standing on a fence post by the footpath near the Wightwick Mill lock.

Lots of the plants which flower in early spring grow on the ground storey of woodland, and develop leaves and flowers before the the trees grow their leaves and monopolise the sunlight. Lords and ladies (wild arum) are one such species.