The warming up of spring

Four days ago was a lovely and warm day. With little winds, I took a break and so I set off with camera. Last year I missed seeing and photographing much of the spring flowers due to rain, and then finding that their heads had simply been bashed. During the summer it was more of the same as in spring,
The barren Strawberries popped up almost everywhere you looked.

Barren Strawberry, Potentilla sterilis,


I'd been waiting for this one for a long time; the Common Dog Violet, Viola riviana,


An Orange tip Butterfly refused posing for a picture; instead it thought it was wiser to fly off.



The Gorse, Ulex europaeus, had been 'in flower' since winter already, but they needed the heat of spring to get them to open up fully.


Here you can see better the Ivy or heart shape of the 5 Barren Strawberry's petals, perhaps.


Another one which gets easily slashhed by rain drops is Three- cornered Garlic, Allium triqtrum.



Primroses, Prunella vulgaris, have been uot for a month already, and in this one someone has taken advantage of this yellow food apparently, by feeding on both sets of flowers.


It took a bite out of this middle flower


while here it favoured the other 'middle' flower.


Along the coast, there were clumps of Lesser Celendine, Ranunculus ficaria, every metre or so. Almost each of these has 1 or more flowers with white in the petals. And, like in this photo, also in flowers which had not opened fully yet.




I began thinking that there must be something like leucism we see in birds, and in other kind of creatures, where the feathers or coat has some pigment, but in far lesser amount than that it should have. But not like total or partly albino.

Any ideas? Please leave them in the comment box below.


Ribwort Plantain, Plantago lanceolata, and some, like this one, had aquired their flowering collar already.


I passed by 2 lovely micro climates on walls, and I will post those pictures separately.

Blackthorn was in flower also. Now it is waiting for Ragged Robin and the Bluebells. As Bluebells are always later than those shown here, it doesn't reprisent spring as much as Lesser Celendine, which is the first flower in February, sinalling the end of winter. For me, May flowers fall under early summer, and not under 'spring'. Perhaps this is also because here in Ireland spring is said to start on 1 February.

I know that Liz will tell me otherwise about the Bluebell.