Hasn't spring started?

The beady-eyed among you may have noticed that we only recently announced which animals and plants we were looking out for as our markers of the start of spring. The reason for this is simply that we've encountered our first, very general, problem with living seasonally - that it makes life bloody difficult.

The species we originally chose as our marker of the start of spring - hawthorn coming into leaf - starting appearing way back in early February and we weren't at all ready to start the journey. It was a particularly early sighting for hawthorn but, even so, it made us reconsider our choices and forced us to plan more flexibly.

Some of the issues we've encountered are specific to our project, the most problematic of which was that I had to find a new team member to cycle with after my previous partner dropped out for family reasons. Thankfully, Matt appeared at the last minute, with all the experience and skills we needed, and was as stubbornly enthusiastic about the project as we were.

Then there have been technical and equipment problems such as stolen bikes, missing and obsolete microphones and the nightmare of getting affordable insurance. A large production company would have absorbed these costs, but our pocket-sized budget has simply not allowed it.

Thankfully we chose a variety of animals and plants to follow, which now includes sand martins and frog tadpoles. After the recent explosion in frogspawn, the first sightings of tadpoles have started to come in - there have already been two in the south-west (25th February in Launceston and 1st March in Truro). Of sand martins we have heard nothing yet but we expect sightings to start coming in very soon. So we're nearly there, we're watching the skies, the fields and the water and keeping an eye out for the sightings on Nature's Calendar.

To everyone who has asked whether spring has already started because the Met Office or Springwatch say it has, I say: 'Probably but maybe not'. Either way, it's so cold this week that I unashamedly admit I'm glad not to be on the road.