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The spring continued its triumph march. The weather was warm and sunny in daytime, at night there was still some frost and in early mornings the grass has been grey, and the surface soil stiff.

 

In the forests there was less and less snow left and the water level in Pedja river slowly started to recede. The ground in the forest became more and more blue with hepaticas for each day, in places lilac-flowered daphne caught the eye, and the yellowish-green golden saxifrage. Pines started to snap and crackle, the first cones opened and shed their seeds. Around maples maple seeds could be seen sprouting, the winged fruits standing up on a long „leg”. Aspens, goat willows and tealeaved willow bushes flowered. Bees hummed in the crown of the willow that had turned yellow. The overwintering bumble bee queens tasted nectar from willow, daphne and colts-foot flowers. Among birds this week the hawfinch, chiff-chaff and redstart also arrived.

 

In the gardens the flowerbeds became more colourful with the flowers of crocuses among snowdrops and snowflakes.

 

Colts-foot flowered at the edges of fields. The soil dried up quickly after the frost in the ground had gone; already in the beginning of the week plough ridges on higher land around here turned light-coloured, and at the end of the week it was possible to start cultivating some fields. Winter crop and rape fields stood out in the landscape with their bright green colour. The growth has been clearly thinned out by snow mould. At the end of the week development in nature was nearly one week in advance of normal seeing to the sum of effective (above 5 °C) temperatures and to the phenology of plants.