After three days of what seemed like incessant drizzle I could get out this afternoon with the cameras again. That rain and the recent milder temperatures may have just been the trigger for what I have been waiting for. The female Common Hazel (Corylus avellana) flowers are now starting to appear, not yet on all hazel trees but a good 50% now have these tiny red flowers in various stages of development. The much larger male lamb’s-tail catkins dwarf the tiny red female flowers, which once pollenated will develop into hazelnuts by late summer.

Today I also see the first signs of another of the early signs of spring, the opening of the male catkin buds on Goat Willow (Salix caprea). 

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