April

By Peter Conway

April is the month when spring definitely starts to spring. Suddenly, everything is trying to flower and blossom at once. When the the sun shines, the sky is a deep blue, birds sing their heart out, and everything feels wonderful. But a day – or an hour - later it can be grey and cold and you are reaching for your winter coat again.

WEATHER

The classic April day that sticks in memory has scudding clouds, blue sky, and the odd sharp shower, and April almost always has days just like that. A particular feature of April weather is that showers and cloud bubble up after a bright sunny start: it is the power of the April sun drawing air off the cold sea (where temperatures are only just above their annual low point) that creates this effect.

When the sun does shine, it is just right - warm and pleasant, without being too hot - mid to high teens centrigrade, perhaps rising into the low 20s if one is lucky. Except possibly right at the end of the month, when on a sunny day shade and suntan cream can start to look welcome, it is generally still a delight in April sit out in the sun even in the middle of the day. Breezes also mean the air stays fresh and the sky a deep blue.

But April can also feature quite a lot of dull grey cloud, under which temperatures dip noticeably. This is sometimes caused by westerly winds, and sometimes by high pressure pulling air off the sea. Early in the month, it can have you reaching for winter coats and pullovers, and even looking lingeringly at woolly hats. The central heating may even go back on again, but not for extended periods.

Nights usually avoid frost, however. An exception to this was 2008 when highs to the south west and over Greenland brought north winds and 5 inches (12 cm) of snow overnight on the 6 April, a Sunday, though it had melted by the afternoon. The following day also brought some snow overnight, but by the 9th daytime temperatures were up to 14 degrees - warm enough to walk in shirtsleeves in the sunshine

Later in the month, grey skies can also bring temperatures down, but only to around 9-10 degrees. What makes a big difference is that by now night times have warmed up - typically to 7 or 8 degrees. One still needs warm bedclothes, but the wind has lots its cutting edge, and winter coats, hats and scarfs have quietly been forgotten and returned to the back of the cupboard.

In the odd dry spring of 2003, it was not till mid month that the rains finally came: predictably their start coincided with Easter. By this time the countryside looked so sorry that they were welcome. Even then, the rest of the month alternated rain with fine sunny days.

However, even this unusual April was beaten by April 2007, when high pressure and hot sun -with temperatures regularly and unseasonally into the low 20s - lasted practically the entire month. There was no rain whatsoever in the first three weeks of the month, and even when westerlies returned from 23 to 27 April, there were only a few, scattered and very short lived showers. Following on from a very warm January to March, this this seemed to suggest a hot summer was in store, but in fact the rest of the spring and summer in fact turned out to be unusually cool and rainy.

At the start of the month paths can still turn muddy if it rains, though grass is no longer squelchy under foot. But any mud dries in less than a day once the weather dries up, even if it is grey. By the end of the month, the ground is dry even hours after a downpour, except in particularly damp places such as hollows and the depths of woods (or after a prolonged period of intense heavy showers, as in 2008). Pot plants also start to need the occasional watering, or regular watering if it is sunny.

One stops thinking about what time it gets dark, although lighting up time in fact advances from 7.35pm to 8.20pm during the month, meaning that by its end it is light till nearly 9pm. The longer days mean that one can once more get up late on Sunday, dawdle around and then suddenly decide to go out, and still have time for a good long time out in the countryside.

NATURE NOTES

• Everything bursts into life - new flowers appear almost daily, grass is green and fresh.
• Leaves return to the trees, starting with low shrubs, working up to the larger trees
• Wood anemones grace woods early in the month; bluebells from around mid month
• Migrant birds return, and birdsong reaches a height

For pictures of the flowers and trees mentioned here, see the photos to the right of this page. Put your cursor over any photo to see its caption. Plenty more photos are available on Flickr: simply click on any photo to see them: this also gives you a larger view of the photo. Wikipedia also has photos and more information on many flowers and trees.

April is the month when the countryside finally loses its winter look and bursts into life. Flowers come out all over the place, leaves return to the trees, and grass grows green and tall. At the start of the month, woodland and fields still have a tired, worn-out look about them. By the end, all is lush and optimistic, but not yet straggly and overgrown as it can become later in May. Throughout April, there is some new sign of spring almost every time you step out into the countryside: for the nature lover, it is the most exciting time of the year.

Flowers, flowers everywhere

April is the first of four glorious months for wildflowers, though of all the four, April is perhaps the best for the way in which its flowers just pop up everywhere. There are three main locations to spot them: on woodland floors, on field and path verges, and in front gardens, where wild species tend to be indulged by gardeners this time of year (and a few garden ones are mentioned here as welcome signs of spring).

Woodland Flowers

A unique feature of April – and indeed of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere – are the flowers that carpet woodland floors in spring. The point is that these flowers are specially adapted to appear before the leaves come out on the trees, and so grow in places that no other flora can. The most famous of these flowers – the bluebell – seems to leave things right till the last minute, only flowering once the beech and oak woods its favours are in full leaf.

At the start of the month, the star attraction is the wood anemone – quite literally, as though they close to demure hanging bells at night, they open to beautiful white stars on bright warm days. They are at their best in the first two weeks of the month, usually lasting just long enough to overlap with early bluebells. Some wood anemones can be found right up to the end of April, however.

The bluebells themselves can be found in scattered flowers as early as the first week of April, but typically they start to come out in force mid month, and are best in the last week in April and the first week in May.

There are variations in this both from year to year and place to place, however. In 2004, bluebells were coming out in force as early as 9 April, and were fully out a week later. In 2005, by contrast, although I saw some early ones on 3 April 2005 on a south facing slope at Ide Hill in Kent, most bluebell wood barely started to come out until right at the end of the month.In 2006, the bluebells were even later, only showing the most tentative buds even in the last week of April, and not at their best till the end of the first week in May. In the hot and dry spring of 2007, some were seen even in the first week, they were at best in the fourth week, but fading fast in many places by the end of it, perhaps due to the lack of rain.

In general, trying to catch the right time and day to see the bluebells is a frustrating business: and one of the most painful experiences of mid-April is to do a walk and pass endless bluebell woods that are not yet in bloom, or to catch a wood when it is half out, with just reedy blue stalks of unopened flowers. At best, all flowers on each stalk are open, and each flower is fat. Then the woods get that magical blue-purple haze. There is no greater emotion that to glimpse this in the distance through the early foliage of an April wood.

Towards the end of the month (locally as early as mid month), you might be lucky enough to catch another flower that carpets woodland – ransoms (commonly known as wild garlic, though they are in fact only a relative of the variety we eat) whose distinctive smell usually preceeds sight of a shimmering sea of its white flowers.

Harder to spot is pretty little wood sorrel, which flowers in shy clumps or, more rarely, larger mats in damp woodland spots during April, going over towards its end. From mid month, you might also see yellow pimpernel and white woodruff on the edge of woodland paths at this time, along with herb robert, which has widely scattered pink flowers, and the goldilocks buttercup, which has a ruff of spiky leaves.

Field and path verges

Exciting though it is to see bluebell woods, it is on path, road and field verges that the real floral action in April is to be found. Yellow celandines (properly lesser celandines, as the unrelated greater celandine also flowers this month: see below) are still at their height at the start of the month, blooming cheerfully almost everywhere one looks. They tend to fade away or get smothered by other vegetation in the second week or so, but they can be found in places out right up to the end of the month. Like wood anemones, once they blook, their leaves shrivel away to leave no trace that they have ever been there.

Other survivors from March that can still be found on verges are daffodils, violets and primroses. Daffodils are generally gone from city parks by the second week, but can survive till later in the month in rural spots. As with celandines, violets and primroses probably get smothered by other vegetation as much as anything, but can be seen in places right up to the end of April.

Of the verge flowers that appear in April, cuckoo flowers, garlic mustard and stitchwort stand out. Cuckoo flowers (otherwise known as lady’s smock) can be seen in force right from the start of the month if March has been mild, and they remain prominent all month. At their best, they create dreamy drifts of pink.

Stitchwort – a delicate white flower identifiable by its unique double petals – can also be seen in isolated spots early in April, but it really starts to be seen sometime late in the second week, and slowly gathers strength until by the end of April it seems to be everywhere. Garlic mustard (which is neither a garlic nor a mustard) also comes out in the second week or so. Honesty, its more flashy mauve-flowered relative, can sometimes be seen a bit earlier. (It apparently gets its odd name from its transparent seed pods).

Another perenial flower of verges and any spare bit of grass in April is the humble dandelion. So familiar it tends to get overlooked, it nevertheless forms intense carpets, with a few flowers at the start of the month, and then an increasing profusion as it goes on until in the fourth week the sheer quantity of them can be almost overwhelming. By this time, some of the flowers are starting to go over, forming their famous circular fluffy seeds, however.

April is also a great month for daisies, which will carpet any lawns or parks in great profusion, if the grass is left uncut. You don’t tend to see them in the countryside proper, but there are plenty of other smaller flowers to be seen. Ground ivy appears early in the month, and though its little purple flowers are not dramatic on their own, it can form great mats of colour as April progresses. The same goes for speedwell – a tiny blue flower that lurks in grass and is found throughout the month. Look closely at verges and you can also see the white flowers of wild strawberry all through April, and, from about the third week, pretty blue spikes of bugle – another flower that can be found in large colonies at times.

Meanwhile there are red and white deadnettles – both of which often have already appeared in March, and from the third week you also get yellow archangel (a sort of yellow deadnettle). Sadly, as well as these prettier members of the nettle family, ordinary stinging nettles are also springing up tall by now – they can reach up to half a metre tall during April. Goosegrass or cleavers (the plant that sticks to your clothes) also attain a similar height. For now, however, neither plant looks straggly or unkempt, and instead they contribute to the general appearance of fresh new greenery

All sorts of other flowers can also be seen in April. Lungwort is a plant with spotted leaves and pink and blue flowers that hang in curling clusters: it comes out right at the start of the month, and is a relative of comfrey and which has similar blooms. Three-cornered leeks have white bells hanging from bluebell like plants: they are usually over by the third week of April, but can survive in places well into May. In bluebell woods you might see early purple orchids – an unromantic name for a very striking flower. Alkanet is a large-leaved relative of the forget-me-not (see Gardens below) and greater celandine, seen from mid-month, is nothing to do with the lesser celandine mentioned above, but is a type of cabbage, with yellow flower.

On many verges, the curious and erotic flowers of cuckoo pint can also be seen (its very name has a sexual connotation) and near Haslemere you won’t have to see the related stinking cabbage, an American import, as it smells simply awful. While we are on odd flowers, wierd bare spikes of horsetail appear earlier in April, opening up into the familiar fly-whisks later in the month. Meanwhile, in damp places you get clumps of yellow marsh marigolds, as well as occasional outbursts of large-leaved bittercress (which looks a bit like a white cuckoo flower, only with more leaves). By the sea you can see alexanders, a green-flowered umbellifer (ie, a bit like cow parsley).

One place that is not very good for wild flowers in April is downland, where flowers don’t come out till later in May. Still, you can see cowslips in April – sometimes in great numbers – on some downland slopes. Nor is April a great time for meadows – that honour belongs to May – though buttercups can start to appear right at the end of April, and some grass starts to put out seed heads.

That is not to say grassland is lacking in interest in April, however, as there are various rather small flowers you can amuse yourself identifying. One is the very diminutive thyme-leaved speedwell, which has a tiny white flower, and another is the mouse ear: both appear around mid-April. At the same time, look out for tiny pink grassland flowers such as dovesfoot cranesbill and common storksbill, and towards the end of the month black meddick (which is in fact a little yellow globe). On verges there are also tiny bittercresses (thale cress, wavy bittercress).

Towards the end of April, what one might think of as May flowers start to appear. Red campion can be seen from the third week, as can bush vetch, charlock, and cow parsley, which has been patiently staking out its ground ever since late December, starts to flower. Reeds start to grow at the edge of ponds. Along railway lines you can see Oxford ragwort (which comes out much earlier than the field ragwort you see later in the summer), and beaked hawksbeard, a tall, dandelion-like flower.

If you know what you are looking for you can also see evidence of other flowers to come: clover, the pale-backed leaves of silverweed, the large leaves of hogweed and giant hogweed, the latter poisonous and looking a bit like rhubarb. Also to be avoided are clumps of hemlock water dropwort which appear by water during April.

Gardens

Gardens can be a good place to look for wild flowers in April. This is the month for forget-me-nots, which forms big blue drifts all through the month. Other blue favourites are the grape hyacinth, with its bobble-heads, which appears at the start of the month, and fades by the third week, and rosemary, which can flower throughout the month if it has not done so earlier in the spring Not exactly wild, but notable harbingers of spring, are magnolia trees, which put out their enormous flowers in early April and lose them about ten days later. At the start of the month, forsythia is still in glorious yellow flower, but it fades mid month

In the cracks in walls, ivy-leaved toadflax, with its dainty purple flowers starts to flower around the third week, as does another crack-filler, the yellow cordialis towards the end of the month. Look out also also for the countryside relative of the cordialis, the pink-flowered common fumitory.

A few other garden flowers that cross the divide into the wild include periwinkle, whose purple flowers last until at least mid April, and clematis montana, a climber producing masses of pink flowers late in April, which sometimes also grows along railway line fences. Lilac trees – only rarely seen outside gardens – also produce masses of mauve flowers from around the second week

The blossom sequence continues

Also crossing the divide between garden and countryside is blossom. The sequence which began back in February or March with the cherry plum continues into April. Around the end of the first week, blackthorn bursts into flower, its twigs totally covered with tightly packed white flowers. It is ubiquitous enough in the countryside to briefly turn every hedgerow white, before it fades a couple of weeks later.

By this time, wild cherries (not to be confused with the cherry plum) are out in the countryside. They flower around the second week, their blossom hanging down in bunches like the cherries to come. Various hybrids of this tree – including the “plena” version with heavily layered flowers - bloom in gardens and city streets at the same time. These trees are all going over as the month ends, however (though not till the end of the first week in May in 2006). Other rarer fruit trees coincide with the wild cherries including wild plums and juneberries (see the top of Harrison Rocks, near Eridge)

Apple blossom is next – not just on orchard trees but on wild crab apples. Early May is traditionally the time for this, but in 2009 it was out by mid April: again, it tends to last about two weeks before fading. Lastly, towards the end of the month rowan starts to put out its white flowers.

The greening of the trees

Along with the appearance of all the wild flowers mentioned, without a doubt the most dramatic change in April is the return of leaves to the tree canopy. Scrub and trees go from a drab brown at the start of the month to glorious fresh greenery at its end. En route, various trees get briefly highlighted in the treescape, and woods acquire a lurid bright green look that is quite overpowering on sunny days.

As a rule the leafing moves from smaller to larger trees (both of different species and within the same species, but there are exceptions – eg massive horse chestnuts which leaf very early). The sequence is a few tentative leaves in the first week of the month, more of a fuzz on smaller trees in the second week, then an explosion of greenery on most remaining trees in the third week.

The very first leaves come on cherry plums, elder bushes and weeping willows in March: by early April the latter is putting out curly yellow catkins that look like caterpillars. But in early April the horse chestnuts follow, their brown sticky buds expanding into monsterous ovals that look like some wierd fruit, and then overnight producing limp bright green leaves. This can happen as early as the first week, though was a week to ten days later in 2006, 2008 and 2009. (If you wonder why you then almost immediately find green leaves on the ground, it is because squirrels eat the flower buds and discard the leaves). At the very end of April, by which time the horse chestnut leaves are fully out, some might start to put up their spikes of candle-like flowers.

Following on from the alder and hazel catkins of March (now long gone), pussy willow (aka goat willow or sallow) is at the height of its catkin phase early in the month (though in 2007 had all but finished by the end of March). There are two types of tree – male, which seem to lose their catkins and then leaf, and female, which retain green catkins to the end of April, leafing in the meantime.

Three otherwise little-noticed trees that suddenly become prominent at the start of April are Norway maple, wych elm, and hornbeam. The Norway maple seems to be bursting into bright yellow-green leaves, but on closer inspection is seen to be producing flowers, with some leaflets. It remains a striking sight until the second week. Wych elm has clusters of flat seeds and leafs from mid month: the surprise here is to see an elm growing at all, since most were decimated by Dutch Elm Disease in the 1970s: yet in places they are surprisingly common.

Hornbeam trees, meanwhile (or at least male ones) are already a mass of catkins early in April. Female trees start to produce tiny leaflets as early as the first week. By mid month, both are a mass of bright leaves. Also around the start of May, the short brown catkins that have hung on birch trees all winter lengthen out (causing big problems to hayfever sufferers: birch pollen is very allergenic). By mid month they have fallen and small leaves are appearing.

Meanwhile bushes and scrub – understorey plants – are starting to green up. As early as the first week in April (though as late as the end of the second in 2006, and in mid March in 2007), hawthorn leaves slowly appear and these have a huge impact on the appearance of the countryside, turning large swathes of scrub and understory green, and giving woodland an ethereal green fuzz.T he next stage, about mid month, is for other understory trees such as hazel to start to leaf, and for bramble (blackberry bushes) and wild roses to start to put out new growth (Both may have started to put out some greenery in March, but only gain momentum in mid April). By mid month, this has made the whole understorey green.

Sycamore comes next: it can take a while from budburst (when the buds open out) to leafing, and some trees seem to be faster about it than others (especially young ones), but by the second week or so its huge leaves are appearing, followed by grape-like bunches of flowers. Other maples emerge in different ways. Sugar maples, a common park tree, produce both leaves and flowers mid month, looking a bit like Norway maples. Field maple produces leaves and then flowers at about the same time. Also at this huge curly yellow catkins like caterpillars appear on white willows, along with their leaves.

By mid month, mid-sized trees like limes, rowan, London planes, and poplars are also putting out leaves, but on alders, limes and indeed birch, they can remain very small till late in May, as if the tree is hedging its bets. Some black poplar hybrids surprise by producing brown leaves which slowly turn green.

Perhaps the most striking tree to come out mid month is the beech, however. Its lurid new leaves hang in limp lines, like washing hanging out to dry, and remain an entrancing bright green long enough to contrast strikingly with any bluebells underneath at the end of the month. Note also the wierd pale leaves of the whitebeam, which appear in strange upturned clusters.

To end the sequence, it is left to the two kings of the forest – the oak and the ash. An old country saying says “Oak before ash: we are in for a splash. Ash before oak: we are in for a soak.” In fact, oak often seems to come out first, producing leaves and flowers around the third week usually, while ash (whose strange flowers, like frizzy lettuce, can be seen right at the start of April) sometimes does not deign to leaf right till the end of the month, and can remain tentative right into the first part of May.

Heathland and shrubs

April is also a good month for gorse and broom flowers, and sees the blooming of the candle-like spikes of flower on cherry laurel, which has rhododendrum-like waxy leaves. These flowers buds have been patiently waiting since February to bloom, and when they come out send out a sickly sweet aroma.

Other shrubs worth noting this month are the flowering currant, a garden escapee that is now widely naturalised: it has serrated three-lobed leaves like a strawberry and lovely clusters of pink flowers mid month . Towards the end of the month the bush with thick finely-toothed leaves and white umbellifer-like flower heads is the wayfaring tree (which is in fact not a tree).

Farmland

Towards the end of the month (though not till early May in 2006 and as early as the start of April in 2007) oilseed rape fields come into bloom, bringing intense patches of yellow to the landscape. April is also still a good month for lambs, whose cheerful folicking on a warm sunny day both cheer one up and remind one of one’s mortality (the lambs only live about 12 weeks...) .

Summer visitors join the birdsong

For pictures, more information and sound clips of the birds mentioned here, see the RSPB website.

April is another great month for birdsong, but the reappearance of leaves on bushes and trees means it is a lot harder to see them.

Easiest to spot is the blackbird, which sits on high perches – particularly but not exclusively at dawn and dusk – and sends out its wonderful melodic song. Song thrushes are also very vocal in April – their song is identifiable by the way it repeats a variety of phrases.

You can also still hear the songs of great tits and robins, which so filled the woodland in February and March, but they are getting scarcer now (presumably as they find mates and nest). Much more prominent in the soundscape this month are chaffinches (whose accelerating riff is a bit like a cricketer running up to bowl) and the chiffchaff, the latter an African visitor that arrived in late March and which has a ponderous three note song (chuff-CHIFF-chaff).

You also hear a lot of dunnocks, though as their song is like that of another summer visitor that arrives in April, the blackcap, it is hard to be sure which you are hearing. Dunnock nests, incidentally, are a favourite place for another summer visitor, the notorious cuckoo, to lay their single egg. Listen out for them from mid month. Another summer visitor you may see at the same time is the house martin, swooping for insects and clicking as it does so.

Also in April, wrens, which in theory sing year round, seem to be very vocal, and you can hear male greenfinches trilling from high perches. The blue tit mating call is also common early in April, but less so towards the end. A couple of more unusual birds to listen out for include the nuthatch (whose sharp wee-wee-wee rings out in woodland) and the lapwing, a crested bird that lives over farmland and can be identified by its extraordinary mewing cries, and habit of dropping out of the air as part of its display.

Butterflies and other insects

One does not expect it, but butterflies can be seen in some profusion in April, wherever flowers are out. Varieties such as the peacock, red admiral, brimstone, orange tip, and cabbage white are quite common. Other minor fauna also appears – for example snails, making an unwelcome return to many gardens just in time to eat the petals off prized blooms. Bees are particularly in evidence around trees in blossom, and swarms of tiny insects can be seen, particularly over water - though only at the end of the month does the air on a sunny day start to seem alive with them. Flies are still rare and not a nuisance.

Unusual years

Years when the April sequence has been different from that described here include 2007, when many April activities were starting as early as mid March. In contrast, in 2006 a very cold March led to everything in April happening a week to ten days later. In 2008, five inches of snow on 6 April brought what had until then been an early spring to a sudden halt, and led to a ten day hiatus of growth, before everything returned to the normal schedule.

© Peter Conway 2006 - updated 2007, 2008, 2009 ● All Rights Reserved ● From his South East of England Almanac