Hurrah! It's Spring

It is a month late. Until this week, everything's been locked up tight. Look at the big fat buds on the magnolia trees, more and more common in people's gardens: shut fast. And last year they burst open in the first week of March.

But it will not be long now, the spring, it cannot be held back much more; and soon, very soon, the world will be full of flowerings, full of nestings, full of blossomings and burstings forth and singing and rushing about.

Since it has been such a long time coming this year - or so it has felt in the arctic east wind, under the grey skies - perhaps we can cheer ourselves up by anticipating some of the pleasures just around the corner. Let us start with flowers. Daffodils and crocuses are obvious and welcome, but familiar; some people prefer spotting something a little less well-known.

Look out now for the bright yellow stars of the lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria), a member of the buttercup family: for Wordsworth, it was such a telling sign of the spring it was his favourite flower. And you thought that was the daffodil?

But Wordsworth wrote only one daffodil poem ("I wandered lonely as a cloud"), and three celandine ones. And here is a piece of celandine trivia: on Wordsworth's grave at Grasmere there is a likeness of a celandine, but it is actually the wrong one, the greater celandine (Chelidonium majus), which belongs to a different family (the poppy); lesser celandines have attractive heart-shaped leaves.

Let us go on with trees. Here are two worth waiting for: the horse chestnut, and the hawthorn. Why are they special? Because in spring they both do green like nothing else. When the horse chestnuts - the trees that bear conkers - come into full leaf, for about 10 days they are of a brilliant, iridescent emerald that takes the breath away. And with hawthorns, especially hawthorn hedges, there is a short period of just a couple of days when the tiny opening leaves look like a green mist being held in place by the branches; you see it and cannot quite believe it.

Both trees are even lovelier for their blossoms. Those of the horse chestnut are known as roman candles: they are huge waxy-white things, standing up all over the branches like the decorations on a giant Christmas tree. The hawthorn flowers are known as May blossom and they turn hedges creamy, and sweet-smelling with their soft scent.

But the best blossom of all, many would contend, is from yet another tree: the bulging snow-white blooms of the cherry. A E Housman immortalised it in a short lyric ("Loveliest of trees, the cherry, now/Is hung with bloom along the bough"). He was looking at cherry trees in woodlands, but there are many spectacular displays in towns, especially when the trees are planted all the way along a road.

The approach to Twickenham bridge in west London is a good example; if you are heading from the capital to the M3 motorway, you will encounter it. And if you are lucky enough to be in the US capital at the right time, the blossoming cherry trees of Washington are even more special.

Staying with the plant world, let us go from admiring to consuming, and think of the first spring vegetables; tender, fresh and full of flavour, as they say in the ads. You might fancy new potatoes, a hint of salads to come, and you might be partial to the crunchiness of purple sprouting broccoli, but the champion is surely asparagus.

What is it that makes it so special? It is the simplicity, somehow, is it not? Here you have just a plain green (or greeny-white) shoot on your plate, and it has been steamed for only a few minutes, but what a delicate, subtle flavour: sweet with just the beginnings of bitterness, and crying out to be dipped in melted butter or hollandaise.

And what about the animal world? Think spring and everyone thinks lambs. Spring lambs are charming, especially in hill farms: their bleating is the true spring sound of north Wales and the Lake District. But everyone knows lambs. What is a bit more distinctive?

Hares. March hares, mad March hares, that square up to each other and start boxing. It used to be thought it was two male animals fighting over females, but now we know that a fighting couple is actually an unresponsive female fighting off an ardent male. That is something most people know about but few people have seen, yet it is a sight visible in the countryside now if you look hard enough, for example, on the army training ranges of Salisbury Plain, where a new public footpath has just been established.

It is easier, though, to enjoy the new season with birds. Spring migrants which have wintered in Africa are among the highlights of the natural world in Britain as it warms, led by the cuckoo with its unmistakable call, and the swallow with its dashing flight.

Many people would list other spring birds as their favourites: chiffchaffs, willow warblers, nightingales, swifts. But here are a couple that are a little less familiar, and really special. (They are also declining in numbers for reasons which are not yet well understood).

The first is the wood warbler, a tiny bird, greeny-yellow above and bright yellow below, which does something fascinating: when the male bird sings to proclaim its territory, it winds itself up, lets go a burst of song, and shivers its body at the same time, like a dog shaking off water. It is so charming you cannot stop watching it (if you are lucky enough to catch it).

The second is the spotted flycatcher, the sort of creature birdwatchers sometimes refer to as an LBJ (little brown job), inconspicuous and unflashy, until you watch it perform: it sweeps out from a perch to catch an insect, and sweeps back with a looping neatness of flight that is elegance personified.

Insects: they also are among the charms of spring we can look forward to. The sight of two early butterflies, in particular, can make your heart leap: the brimstone and the orange tip. The first is brilliant lemon-yellow, the second is white with fiery marmalade-orange at the end of the wings: both make wonderful splashes of colour in a landscape still largely monochrome from winter.

But there are even more fascinating, less familiar insect attractions in less familiar places. Fishermen see rivers coming to life in the spring, and fly fishermen closely observe the aquatic insect life on which trout feed. Two river flies are infallible markers of the months of April and May, and as big a pleasure to those who know them as the orange tip and brimstone. The first is the St Mark's fly, so-called because it appears about St Mark's Day (25 April). Also known as the hawthorn fly, this is a burly black insect which is instantly identifiable because its legs hang down like the undercarriage of a plane coming into land. Trout feed on them voraciously in the short period they are on the water. But they feed even more avidly on the second insect month-indicator, the mayfly, which does indeed appear in May. These are beautiful, yellow, long-winged, long-tailed, butterfly-sized insects that induce a true feeding frenzy in trout when they fall on the water in their thousands, in one of the great natural sights of the countryside in springtime.

The countryside: that is where we think of spring happening. But it happens in towns and cities too, of course, with sunshine and warmth and trees leafing and flowers blossoming and light dresses and open-necked shirts appearing. And perhaps we might put in a word for somewhere else where spring can happen magically, somewhere very much taken for granted: the suburbs.

Above all, spring gives the suburbs long evenings, when the light softens and the air is still, and cul-de-sacs and privet hedges and even car ports are transformed. There are evening sounds with great resonance. For me, two in particular are the first purr of a lawnmower trimming the green square behind 15 Acacia Drive, floating through the stillness, and the crystal sound of a song thrush singing its heart out on 15 Acacia Drive's rooftop, infallibly brought on by the change in the evening light. There is even a smell of the suburbs in spring which can lift your heart: the sweet scent of the cut grass after that lawnmower has passed.

But why is the heart lifted? All the seasons surely have something to entrance us. Who does not lap up the lazy days of high summer, drink in hand? Who is not touched by the wistful sadness of a misty October day? Who is not stunned by the transformation of a dark cityscape by a heavy snowfall?

The heart is lifted because the signs of Spring, which will shortly be upon us, trigger in us something unusual: the anticipation of new life. We know that all living things die, including ourselves, and we have to accept that, but the world being wonderfully reborn every year goes a long way to make up for mortality.

For a few short weeks, spring plants in our souls one of the rarest and most precious human feelings, one we rarely refer to these days, but one which in spite of ourselves we cannot shake off. For when flowers are opening, grass is growing once again, birds are returning to nest and butterflies are on the wing again, Hope (remember that?), hope is all around us, and in us too.