Whoever wakes in England

This Comma (Polygonia c-album), my first "real" butterfly of the year landed on the drive at lunchtime, moments after I had released a Peacock that I have kept through winter in the garden shed.

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In the autumn, I was given an old wasps' nest from Denso Wildlife Reserve by my entomologist friends, Harry Whiteley and Steve Warrillow. Larvae of the Bee Moth (Aphomia sociella) are feeding on the remnants of the comb.

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The first of my newly-purchased plants is in flower. In Yorkshire, Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) is a widespread but infrequent escape from gardens occurring in hedgerows and on road verges. I am growing both Lungwort and Common Comfrey (Symphytum officinialis) in the hope of finding the rare leaf-mining moth Dialectica imperialella.

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Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

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Robert Browning