We’ve had frogs spawn as early as the first week of February so doesn’t count as spring for me...I reckon it’s the sound of the first returning Chiffchaff...hopefully in mid March for us.
The birds are now singing up in wester ross thrushes tits, greenfinch, chaffinches, dunnocks so far.mind you we have 10 days of sleet and snow showers forecast down on the coast. The mountains may get a bit of winter yet!
Some of our frogs are back too. Only seen a few though and not the hundred or so we normally have. No spawn yet either and I class that as a good thing. A mild winter often leads to early spawning then when the pond freezes it kills the spawn.
Feels more like summer. I'm at 1200m altitude just outside Grenoble and the temperature officially hit 19.1º today according to Météo Grenoble. I was outside in the garden most of the day in shorts and flipflops - in the sun it felt 10 degrees hotter.
The ski stations are soldiering on bravely but it hasn't been worth going for a ski in a couple of weeks (at least when its on your doorstep and you can be picky). Its meant to get more wintry over the next couple of weeks with a few snow showers forceast from Tuesday but we've had the majority of days being clear, sunny and warm (in the sun anyway) since the middle of December.
