The first photographs this month were taken by James, and show a family of blackbirds who had taken up residence in a hanging basket just outside the back door.

The next photograph finds me at the bottom of the cattle drive.

You may have heard the of a Golden Pheasant, well this particular pheasant apparently could not afford gold, and had to settle for white.

The cause of this unusual colour scheme is probably genetic , possibly disease (although the bird seemed otherwise in good health) or the shock of an encounter with Phil on a dark night :-)

Moving on down to the lower meadows. Now that spring is well and truly with us, colour returns to the woods, meadows and fields as the many wild flowers once again bloom. Below are just a few of the many flowers to be found around Greenheyes at this time of the year.

Examples of Spring Flowers

Bluebell	Cowslip	Red Dead nettle
Campion	Bugle	Ground Ivy
Wood Anemone	Lady's Smock	Celandine

As regular readers will know, I have a passing intrest in archaeology. One of the ways that old buried stuctures, such as buildings, walls and ditches can be spotted is by crop marks.

These marks usually appear during dry periods during the summer months.

In this case the marks are caused by buttercups or rather the lack of them.

Before anyone asks, No, I don't know what they are made by or what they represent. Any Ideas?

As this next photograph it is not just the meadows that are in blossom.

This Hawthorn was covered in that much blossom it looked more like it was covered in snow than in flowers.

This Bumble bee seems quite keen on the nectar from the hawthorns flowers.

As it gathers the nectar it also pollenates the flowers, It will be interesting to see how much fruit the hawthorn has later in the year.

Well that's it for now.

More next month Andy

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