Feburary

Baby badger, image copyright Paul Shoreman, LCC

The first hopeful signs of spring begin to show in the plant world.

Look out for the first celandines and snowdrops peeping their way through lifeless woodland floors and on road side verges.

Also look out for:

  • Frogs during their breeding season when adults lay frogspawn in ponds between February and March.
  • Badgers and their 'spring cleaning' as the males get to work getting rid of the old bedding and replacing it by newly collected materials.  Below the ground the females are beginning to give birth to litters of one to five cubs which will emerge in the darkness in April and May.
  • Good weather towards the end of the month can tempt Lapwings back onto their farmland breeding territories.