Celandines

Out for much of today, so little chance to observe our local birds. A coal tit has been very busy in our garden first thing this morning, and I was surprised by its call, high pitched and much more strident than I had expected. The blackcap is still busily keeping away every bird it can from the main feeding station.

On my way up country to Llangyniew, I saw a grey heron standing so close to the road that I might have taken it for a plastic replica somehow set down there. It was prospecting a hedgerow ditch, and seemed quite unconcerned that traffic was speeding past. I have to say it did look rather bedraggled and may not have been a very healthy bird.

The view across country from the main door of Llangyniew church has to be one of the finest anywhere around, even today when the light was poor and the cloud low. This is also a pretty cold spot to stand around in, but the churchyard contained a fair stand of snowdrops, plus the first celandines I have seen out this year. They were not very well out, not surprising since celandine flowers open with the sun, and there was none of that today; but I was able to count a dozen or more flowers, so a genuine sign of spring, with some sunny days due next week and improving temperatures, so I shall keep my eyes open.

I should of course call this flower the lesser celandine, since there is an unrelated greater celandine, a member of the poppy family. I quite like both flowers, but it was the lesser celandine that was a favourite flower of the poet William Wordsworth. The fact that the greater celandine is carved on one of his memorials testifies, I suppose, to the way in which English names can confuse.