I have been looking for some weeks now and so have many others.  Its familiar drumming noise has been heard all over the park, but I was was delighted this morning to catch this picture of our local woodpecker in the tree bordering the Langley Arms. Isn’t it a fine bird!

The park is beginning to wake from its winter sleep now. These graceful snowdrops hang in their fragile places under the lime trees and the observant ones among us may spot the very first hedging about to flower near the toddler play park. The first white flowers are those of the Cherry Plum, I believe, (though,as always,I am open to correction!). The blackthorn will follow later in March or April.

Looking forward to the Spring, I am glad to say that we are hoping to hold another Festival of Nature in the Park this year on May 18th. Ed Drewitt, the naturalist who was with us last year, is offering to return and I am planning a programme with him. Our intention is to offer bird walks like last year and to tell the stories of the trees in the sense of combining a walk to meet the trees with stories, pictures or other memorabilia of the land as it was in the past, before the estate was built. So this is a call for stories please, from those who knew the place long ago. Please let me know what you have so we can find ways to share this with others.

In the light of the recent news about the decline of insect numbers across the UK, we also hope to run a session focused on discovering the insects that live in the park using sweep nets among the long grasses.

So I hope that whets your appetite for the Festival. I realise it is on the same weekend as the  Food and Drink festival in the Science Park  but I am thinking that they will not clash too badly. In order to put the Festival of Nature on we need to form a management committee for our Friends Group and I am looking for one or two more people to join this. The commitment is minimal but the job is important. Please have a word with me if you care about the park and would be willing to give a little time to this.

Enjoy the Spring!

Chris