I went down to the woods today

Orange bummed bumble bees preceded me up a track through banks of nettles, sticky goosegrass dotted with golden dandelions, lesser celandines and garlic mustard. Herb Robert and bird's eye speedwell peeked out under a froth of Queen Anne's lace and embarrassed out of date primrose flowers fluttered on leggy stalks. Dead nettles hid a pair of fairy slippers in the curved top petal of each flower and cowslips were just appearing in the adjacent field. At the end of the track both sides were white lined with wild cherry petals that were being scattered like confetti by the chilly wind.

At the entrance to the wood there were a few bluebells in amongst the dog's mercury, wood anemones trembled and following a badger path I stumbled on their huge latrine barely covered with ivy which would be used by all the tribe. (When it gets too stinky they will move on and make another.) Blue mice (dog violet) hid between the leaves of ramsons (enough for pesto!) and lords and ladies with spotted or plain green leaves stood proudly among the hart's tongue and other ferns which were gradually unfurling their base clefs.

I smelt the intoxicating scent of bluebells before I saw them – acres of gentle blue with badger paths running through them from the huge sett above. In the rut they had made the leaves and flowers looked like a sledge had rolled down over them. In amongst the blue were fallen trees or branches, some of the latter as large as a tree themselves; many of the older ones were covered in moss. A leopard spotted tree stood out and when I looked more closely saw it was covered in last year's King Alfred's cakes (a hard round black fungus) and underneath a fox had had pigeon pie for supper for there were only feathers left.

There were a few albino bluebells and occasionally a patch of them and I took many pictures before leaving the area. It was impossible to walk quietly for it hasn't rained for a while and crunching all the leaves, twigs, beech husks, dried out caterpillar shaped catkins and sweet chestnut husks etc. sounded like I was walking on biscuits. However it didn't deter a roe deer from standing and watching me for some time before leaping away to safety when I lifted my camera. Young tree seedlings were everywhere and Traveller's Joy vines lay in huge coils at the base of bushes that had been too weak to support them. Brambles with new shoots were everywhere trying to trip me up.

Before leaving I went to the area in Prior's Wood where Bugles have spread like bluebells – people come for miles to see and photograph this rarity but only a few were just showing their blue buds today. Birds were singing everywhere and the blackbirds were particularly vigilant in their territories for there were no brown wives visible and I imagine they are nesting already.

Here particularly for dups and pcc are lots more pictures, for last year they came to England specifically at this time to see the bluebells and they didn't appear until just before they flew back to New Zealand