Little darling

It's been a long cold lonely winter. But now there's some warmth in the wind, a westerly which has finally triumphed over the north-easterlies that seem to have blown for months. In sheltered patches of Kingsdown Wood the first wood anemones are flowering......
...clumps of sweet violets are emerging smelling, well, sweet.......
....and tucked away inconspicuously is a patch of town-hall clocks, and the time that they tell is that it's nearly spring.
In the Wood the usual party of long-tailed tits is still together, this time with at least three firecrests, a couple of goldcrests and possibly the same dusky chiffchaff that I saw here in December.
A stroll along the coast provided a first sand martin, another f1recrest, a singing chiffchaff and three male wheatears, living up to one of their local names - "clodhoppers".
Also seen was John Holyer, who entertained us with a story of how, in the early days of ringing at the Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, he caught wheatears by putting a net over rabbit holes, and waiting until they flew out.