Green Fire

THE FIRST BRIGHT GREEN LEAF BUDS of the Hawthorn are opening. I remember, at Infant School, being told by classmates that these young leaves taste of bread-and-cheese.


The first Coltsfoot I've seen in flower, on a grass verge. The colour isn't just in the yellow of the flower, the flowers buds themselves are flushed with red. It makes quite an impact against dried grasses, and the rosettes of Cow Parsley. The leaves of coltsfoot appear after the flowers. I've weeded, only slightly reluctantly, many of its rhizomes from a bed in our garden.


A female Sparrowhawk swoops down onto the hedge, then settles down on the log edging of a bed in the front garden. It's the sort of view normally seen only in the work of wildlife artists. The legs show up brilliant yellow, you can even see the yellow of the bright alert eyes. Much as I like song birds, I don't begrudge our local sparrowhawk's pickings. The paperboy wheels his bike along the pavement, only a couple of metres from the bird and she flies off over the house roof.

The moon adds drama to the night sky but the two planets that were so close the other night have moved apart very rapidly. The Plough, Ursa Major, stands upright on its tail.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail;'richard@daelnet.co.uk'