Nature lies dormant ahead of first day of spring

UK Spring Weather : Icicles on the side of a road in South Derbyshire

‘Conservationists report lack of budding plants, animals returning to hibernation and migrating birds held back by wintry weather

One hundred years ago, on the official first day of spring, the Anglo-Welsh war poet and naturalist Edward Thomas set off from Clapham Common in London to cycle and walk to the Quantock Hills in Somerset. The record of his journey, called In Pursuit of Spring, became a nature-writing classic, telling of exuberant chiffchaffs and house martins, daffodils and cowslips in full flower and “honeysuckle in such profusion as I had never before seen”.

Had Thomas taken the same route today, he might not have seen very much wildlife – and could well have frozen. Mist and fog, rain, a bitter north wind, and temperatures just above freezing are forecast for , the first “official” day of spring…’