Durham Flower Show

Two of our annual Spring highlights involve plants within the University's extensive mature deciduous woodlands. If your routes around the Mountjoy site never take you up 'Cardiac Hill' now is a good time to make a point of walking the path at the eastern end of the Arthur Holmes building and enjoying the first of the floral spectacles - the carpet of wood anemones. They are at their best right now.




Wood Anemones in Little High Wood (Allan Watson)


It is worth a close look at the individual flowers. Although the overall impression is of white, they are actually subtly variable and may show pinkish, lilac or blue, and often have a darker tint to the back.

There are already hints to be seen, throughout Little and Great High Wood, of the second great floral highlight. The bluebells are coming on nicely.

Spring …. at last

After an apparently endless winter, spring is finally upon us and the natural world is frantically trying to catch up after a delayed start to the year. The first spring flowers are blooming in the Durham woodlands (Wood Anenome in particular is in full flower right now), and in the last two weeks many migratory birds have flooded back into the country from their warmer wintering grounds.

Osprey migrating across the Mediterranean (Photo: Steve Willis)

Now is the time for unusual sightings of migratory birds around the university, and a prime time to ditch the car and walk in to work to experience spring in full flow. On my walk to work on Friday I saw an Osprey circle over the River Wear at Maiden Castle, before drifting off over Gilesgate and heading north. This morning, in the same area, I spotted a migratory Wheatear, a much smaller migrant that travels from its wintering grounds in Africa back to the uplands of the UK to breed. Add to this the woodlands that are full of newly-arrived warblers that spent the winter in the Mediterranean, and the Swallows and House Martins buzzing overhead, having just got back from Africa, and you really do get a sense that spring is here at last.