Warm weather has encouraged a few insects to emerge from hibernation, such as the yellow brimstone butterfly, a sign that winter has finally ended. Brimstones are one of the first to take to the wing and can be seen as early as February. I saw three of these enjoying the warm sunshine looking for a feed of nectar and one small tortoiseshell, another butterfly that hibernates over winter. Bumble bees have also been out and about, as have groups of midges, particularly swarming near water sources at dusk.

On my walks along part of the Wilts and Berks Canal there is an abundance of a yellow flower. It is colts foot, one of the first daisies to appear and its flower is a small yellow disc encircled by fine yellow rays. The stem resembles asparagus tips ,with scales and its leaves grow large in the autumn. Coltsfoot is particularly fond of damp locations,which accounts for its abundance along the banks of the canal. It is interesting that many early flowers are bright yellow, which is a colour that attracts insects.

We are still seeing barn owls on Manor Farm and skylarks can be heard making their familiar sound as they hover over fields of grass and growing crops. Their nests are grassy cups made on the ground in these fields between April and July.

March lambing on Manor Farm is now well underway, with 400 ewes having given birth in the first 10 days. Most of these ewes and lambs are now out in the park and are enjoying the lovely spring weather, so I will just ask that if you are walking a dog at this time of year, please keep it under control. It is very distressing for the ewes and their lambs to be separated and sometimes receive horrific injuries that often prove to be fatal.

There are another 140 ewes still in the barns waiting to lamb and Melissa has 20 lambs on bottles in her creche. Kevin is having a slight problem with a few rather small lambs being born to his shearlings ( first time mums ). He told me that the shearlings were grazing for longer than usual ,as he was low on conserved forage last season. This meant that when they were able to be fed conserved forage they were not used to the feed, so ate less. If a shearling was carrying more than one lamb, she was sometimes not consuming quite enough nutrients to support her and her growing lambs. Some of the shearlings don't seem to have enough milk, also a result of the feed problem. However there are only a small number of affected sheep. Hopefully next season Kevin will have enough forage to introduce the change to their diet earlier before they become pregnant therefore when they come into the barns once pregnant they will know what the conserved forage is.

Recently the small flock of pet sheep began to give birth to their lambs, sired by liquorice ,a black ram. When scanned the results showed that Daisy was not pregnant, but the rest of the pets were. Blackberry had three black ram lambs, but they were too premature to survive. One was still born and another rather weak when born so died a few days later after a great deal of extra care ,but even the strongest of the three was unable to cope with being so immature. Palini, the 12 year old Granny, gave birth to twins, a black ewe lamb that has been named Treacle and a white ram lamb. They are strong and healthy, but Palini needed some help at the birth so due to her grand old age and is struggling to provide them with enough milk, so will be retired and enjoy the later part of her life without being pregnant again. It is quite unusual for sheep to live to such an old age as they tend to start losing their teeth from about 5 years old. The only pet ewe left to lamb is Hazel , so it will be interesting to see what colour her lambs will be. I have previously mentioned a ewe in the main flock with a face that is half black and half white called Annabelle. She has just given birth to a single ewe lamb.