April: photos of the month

Thank you to everyone for recording signs of spring this April. We’ve received 5021 records of wildlife events from 822 people. Last month we received 1452 records of wildlife events from 538 people. It seems that the nice warm weather after the cold February and March has set everything in motion.

You also sent lots of photos, so many that we can’t show them all. But we really enjoyed looking through them so please keep adding them with your observations.

April highlights

The trees have been very active, lots of first leafing and even some flowering. We received 135 records for first leaf of horse chestnut, 90 for birch, 85 for sycamore and 65 for pedunculate oak.

Blackthorn first flowering records were 139, hawthorn has some catching up to do with 31.

The flowers are blooming! Bluebell had 207 first flower records, cuckooflower 105, wood anemone 104 and lesser celandine 64.

Birds are getting busy. We’ve had 270 first swallow records, 128 first chiffchaff records and 61 first cuckoo recordings. We also received 61 first records of blackbird feeding young.

The insects are taking off.  You sent in 138 first records of red-tailed bumble bee queen, 81 first sightings of seven spot ladybird, 152 peacock, 96 small tortoiseshell, and 20 red admiral.

Things are even looking up for the frogs after lots of them spawned before the snow, with 90 records of tadpole first seen.

What to look out for in May

So far we’ve only had a handful of records for horse chestnut first flower, oxeye daisy first flower, first swift and first flower of timothy grass. So we expect to receive lots more records for these in May. Keep an eye out.

A huge thank you for all your sightings over April regardless of whether or not you uploaded photos. Every record helps scientists discover more about how UK wildlife is responding to a changing climate.