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The conversation has moved from the Radio 4 website to this blogsite - thought it was more appropriate. Here are the entries so far...

Liz Vale of Glamorgan
April 2nd Brimstone moth in the garden The first time I have identified one although they are quite common

Trevor Courtney, South Dorset 10th April
Warm relaxing sunshine, abundant bird song and the smell of cut grass. Lush banks of rivers and hedgerows are primed for the surge into summer. The odd swallow has arrived but no cuckoo yet. Usally an early cuckoo lives in the water meadows so any day now ! The best for me are skylarks singing out of a clear blue sky.

Netta Hotchkiss, Kent
10th April. The oak tree in our garden is in leaf Easter weekend, chiffchaff in the garden, blackbird and robin feeding young and today I let out a crane fly from the kitchen, that has got to be early.

Cotswold Water Park
Easter Sunday saw the arrival of the Sand Martins and the bats have woken up.

Meg, Vale of Evesham
Spring is here for the cock pheasant preens himself on the back field. My daughter and I watch as he dashes from one hen bird to another, strangely reminiscent of another cock bird I knew at college. Like the latter, his puffed up tail feathers did not entice the hen birds from their early morning pickings.Finally the grass is catching up with the viracious appetite of the cows, and little bundles of lambs overwintered inside their mums are being born to more clement weather than the early flock. The floods of last month seem a distant memory, with cracks opening up in the wheat field. Hopefully April will bring some gentler rain to replenish the thirsty crops.

Adam, Hackney
We had a pair of Jays in our garden yesterday, bang in central London. I understand that this is highly unusual. I'm trying to get a photo.

Paul Myland, Peterborough
Whilst on holiday in Pembrokeshire last week, I saw increasing amounts of swallows, a few pairs of wheatears on St Davids Head and a whitethroat between the St Davids Golf Links and Whitesands Bay. The swallows have yet to reach my father in law's farm near Peterborough but they can only be days away.

Geoff Warren, Cambridge
An infallible sign of the coming of Spring is the appearance of Mallards on Parker's Piece, a flat area of open grass without any water in the centre of the city. There is usually at least a pair-and-a-spare (one duck with two drakes), often more, and they wander around quite happily amongst the crowds of students and visitors.

spring woods, baildon, west yorks
comma,peacock and and small tortoise shell butterflies,chiffchaff and blue bells, wood anenomes on Easter Sunday

mica cornwall 249 ft
all those but no swallow in the garage yet that's spring to me cover over the car fro droppings - and planting out the potatoes nobody mentions the white double star flowers in the hedgerows Everyyear I can never remember the name probably because the nearby whitecross name come s to mind instead

David Francis North Oxfordshire
On Easter saturday, at about 0815am, I heard a woodpecker busy at work. This proved to me that spring is here and that natures life is in renewal.

Paul Evans, Shropshire
The fuse that fizzles along hedges has lit them through with green fire. There are bees and butterflies everywhere: dancing couples of peacocks and small tortoiseshells marking out their flickering lines of territory through one of the most glorious Easter Sundays anone can remember. And yet. This spring's Easter unfolds with the pages of the International Panel on Climate Change report (IPPC) predicting famine, drought, flood and the extinction of a third of the planet's species. So when I see a holly blue butterfly today, the earliest I've seen one, its vulnerability and even the context of its existence is thrown into stark relief, particularly against the beauty of the morining. How do others feel about this?

sandra johnstone. nr Dumfries
I have been surprised to see and hear bumble bees for at least the last four weeks in this area. The yellow gorse is still flowering which it has been doing throughout the winter.have seen common butterflies sunning themselves in the sandstone quarry nearby. The small wood around the quarry is deafening with birdsong, so many must have survived the winter it is wonderfull to hear.

Fergus The Forager
I have been picking St George’s Mushrooms for years and have always enjoyed the challenge of trying to find them on St George's Day - 23rd of April. The enjoyment is partly derived from the fact that it really is a challenge. Normally the mushrooms appear 1-2 weeks after the 23rd. I have only found them earlier twice in 10 years - on the 22nd. This year I found them on April the 1st - no April fool. That is incredibly early and surely speaks volumes for the changing climate!?

Sylvia Neumann, West Sussex
8 April - The sloe bushes on Ditchling Common looked like white clouds, while a haze of wood anemones spread over the open heath. The gorse was flowering, as was one bluebell. I saw and heard chiff-chaffs and robins singing. On the pond, moorhens were gathering nest material, while a swan repelled over-curious dogs. There were small tadpoles in the marshy end of the pond. A peacock butterfly sunned itself on the path.

Linda Hardy
The hedgerows already have leaves of Queen Anne's Lace showing and even one or two plants in flower. Does anyone know the generic name for this plant? I am not sure if it is a wild carrot? Primroses have been out for at least a month and the cowslips are now out. Lady Blackbirds are under the shrubs finding nesting material and I was very pleased to have a greater spotted woodpecker on my bird feeder. It is lovely to have such a warm Easter and I am waiting for the warm sunshine to wake the slow-worms that live in the garden. The insect life also out and about with plenty of ladybirds, brown butterflies and tiger beetles.

Christina, Kent
I can tell it is spring when I put out the bird food, turn around and nearly trip over a blackbird who is trying to dash between my legs to get first pick of the sultanas! After being invisible all winter they are back and confident in the garden. The daffodils have already gone over and the pasque flowers were at their best on Palm Sunday. Frogspawn was in the pond in mid-march (only our second year) and I put some in a bowl indoors to watch the miracle of development into frogs. Right now they are voracious feeders but surprisingly reluctant to grow any legs!

Debbie, Salisbury, 7th April
Yes, I saw a swallow yesterday, but been pipped at the post by quite a few of you. We've had masses of celandines and banks of primroses out this Spring; mostly the daffodils are over now. They are a bit too bold for me, I prefer the more gentle primroses. Our bees were out in force today: coming back with knees full of pollen, sadly we think it is the rape crop. I've seen a few butterflies, mostly brimstone, but it is a bit breezy in our spot so we don't see many. I've had sparrow, blue tits, siskins and green finches on the bird feeders. There seem to be more magpies this year. We had a nightingale singing in the copse nearby. Try as I might, despite the volume I couldn't spot it!I really love this time of year as all the plants start to burst into growth. The magnolias have been beautiful and the amelanchier are coming out. No sign at all of our oak tree coming into leaf though.

Angela, Lilbourne,Northants/Warks border
8th April. Brimstone,tortoiseshell and peacock butterflies in garden over the last few days. Pipestrel bat patrolling the garden from about 8.20pm. First pipestrel spotted by husband on 27th March.A few bluebells opened in garden today. Saw two swallows in village of Yelvertoft this evening.

Malcolm, Edinburgh
About a month ago I saw my first flower - butterbur carpeting a local wood. Then coltsfoot and opp. leaved golden saxifrage brightening a streamside. Since then lesser celandine, dogs mercury, wood anenome, dog violet, shepherds purse and bittercress. And a solitary wild strawberry bloom...

Marion, Coulsdon, 7 April 2007
Loads of flower buds on gooseberry plants

Bettina, Worcester
As I opened my curtains the other morning, bracing myself for the guilty feelings about to engulf me at the sight of my unkempt garden, my heart was filled with joy at the vision I beheld, a positive hive of industry, the local bird population had decided that my garden was the best source of nesting materials and the insects that live in them! My concience is salved!

Wayne Whyte Medicine Hat Ab Canada
We've gone from +23C to-12C in the past week. The Robins arrived en mass about 6 days ago and the Chikadees Nuthatches and Redpoles have been singing their heads off. After 4 days of snow all has grown quiet except for a few crows and seagulls. I await the arrival of spring again hopefully it will stay this time.

Eugen Rausch, Öhringen, Germany
Hallo, my favorite advertiser of spring is the skylark. When I hear it's wonderful melody and see it flutter in the pale blue sky, spring has begun for me. Have a nice spring over there in Britain, too.

alex lowery west dorset
2 male adders on heath and 2 small lizards

Wendy in Portsmouth
I too am awaiting cuckoo but have to go uot into the nearby Meon valley for this.The essence of spring for me is an undefianable "feel" in the air. Not a temperature, breeze or smell just something intangible which I suppose is made up of all those three things. I felt this last Tuesday whilst walking the dog and was reassured that despite the cold snap spring is on it's way!

Kath Staffordshire
Watching the water vole happily nibbling the first juicy celendine shoots and basking in the sun on the banks of the stream in my garden.

David, Houston, Renfrewshire
After several days of spectacular sunshine and warmth with bees and butterflies, Good Friday dawned cold and grey with cloud cover. Yet the overcast conditions did not stop the dawn chorus: from 6am or before, blackbirds were singing their hearts out and the great spotted woodpecker was drumming loudly. The season is advancing relentlessly.

Caroline Knapp Herne Hill
I have three patches of frogspawn floating in my pond, and a few newly-hatched tadpoles wriggling along the edges. Maybe my goldfish will eat them up, unless the foxes do when they drink from the pond from time to time. This year I've tried to rescue a few by placing them in a small bowl.I love looking up at the budding trees, especially the horse chestnuts which are positively bursting with green leaflets. Spring is my very favourite time of year!

John Cooknell, Warwick
At my place of work in Coventry we have a large pond/water feature, this had been drained over winter for maintenance.It was filled on 2nd April and by today was full of Frogs, Frogspawn, Newts and other water life, that had all been waiting, hiding in the bushes for their own Spring.So it seems it is not only temperature that brings forth spring, other things must be right as well!It was amazing to see an otherwise lifeless desert return to life so quickly.

Christine Westerback Northumberland
I was attending a meeting held at St John's Church hall at Formby on Thursday 16th March on a beautiful bright sunny morning. Although the churchyard backs onto the National Red Squirrel Refuge no squirrels were present. However, my day was made seeing my first Peacock Butterfly of the Spring. It flitted about amongst the Spring flowers enjoying the morning warmth. A little later I spotted a small Tortoiseshell too.

Jane Varley N.E Derbyshire
4 April 07Brought up on Malcolm Saville’s Jane’s Country Year, I have long associated the raucous sound of a rookery with very early spring. To me it means new stirrings and the beginning of the end of winter. Even now that the old practice of spring ploughing, which used to turn up plenty of food for them, has long ceased, these early birds are first to set about the business of pairing and home making.A magical bird call which always sends goose-pimples of delight down my spine is that of the curlew. I heard my first one this year on 5 March up above the rough pastures just below the moor. But today I went down the valley to the bridge over the Derwent to visit one of our local rookeries. The young sounded large and hungry and must be almost ready to leave the nests. It’s not a large rookery, having about a dozen nests in the main area with a few ‘outliers’ some way off in trees along a track running parallel to the river. It looks as though some pairs of birds have decided to move to a more salubrious neighbourhood away from the noise and fumes of the busy road. This year I have noticed several bird species plucking living twigs off trees. Wood pigeons, collared doves, jackdaws, rooks and crows. I suppose live twigs are bendier than dead ones and so better for weaving into the nest structure.As I walked beside the river, stopping to sniff the abundant wild garlic, I was thrilled to hear my first chiff-chaff of the year. Now I know that the warblers won’t be far behind. I came across some violets too, but scentless ones. Is it true that the wild blue violet has lost its perfume? When I was a child both blue and white violets smelled wonderful. Only the dog violet (as we called it in Devon) had no smell. Jane VHope ValleyDerbyshire

David Roberts - East Sussex
Today (5th April) I heard a chiffchaff for the first time this Spring (2007).

Margaret
Today I saw a swallow close to Bristol Airport. 5th April

Stephanie Wiffen, Worcestershire
We're very lucky here to have a wide range of wildlife. Every morning for the past 2 weeks we have woken to the sounds of curlews & woodpeckers. This afternoon (4 April) I heard skylarks singing their hearts out over the fields around Bredon Hill. But all is not perfect - we won't be happy until we hear the nightingales down by the Avon.

Robin Law, West Fife
Uncovered two small eggs in a scrape out under a plank of wood under some laurel trees. Siskins eating the niger seed and all the usual Tits in full flow. Lots of evidence of a sparrow hawk killing smaller birds in the garden. Weather really wrm this last few days, hot even. Our grey squirrel seems to have gone the way of all flesh this winter and local reds are about a mile away with the Roe Deer. Wall to wall blue - wonderful and uplifting after a dull mild winter.

Sue White, Reading
My new pond had its first frogspawn very early on 19th Feb and the tads began wriggling a month or so later. I'm as pleased as if I'd laid them myself!

Alison Purseglove, Wincanton Somerset
There was a Humming Bird Hawk Moth in my garage at the weekend - a bit of a shock in early April

jean rurlander South Lakesrir
On 1st April on a walk on scout scar heard skylark. next day i thought I heard a swallow near my house.In the local woods beneathe the scar a profusion of daffodils a little earlier than usual. Violets, carpets od celandin, some wood anemone. April 3rd high on a fell overlooking Ullswater a buzzard being chased off by a crow, and a skylark high above singing then culew followed.Warm sunshine, cold breeze. I await my visitors, the swifts who always arrive on May 8th without fail. I wonder if it is early for me to hear a swallow.

Mark Wallington - Gloucestershire
2nd April - glorious sunny day in the Cotswolds. Digging the vegatable garden, always a good time to observe and listen to the wildlife around. The familiar sound of a swallow high and distant just alerts me to scan the sky for a returning friend. I spot two perched on a wire chattering away. I have noticed over the years how these early sightings are often fleeting. The birds obviously just passing through. A few more days and the local birds will be back and building nests in an old barn.

Paula Adam. Strathyre, Perthshire
We have been waking up to beautiful clear, frosty mornings - still a touch of snow on the higher hills but the mountains are definately greening up. One sad moment was seeing a dead otter at the side of a busy road - miles away from the river. Apparently, following a very wet November and December the otters had to go higher up the hills as the lower land was flooded - maybe this one was making his way back down. We spotted frog spawn in the puddles on the forestry track roads three weeks ago!

Karen Ible, Botus Fleming, Cornwall
When we lived in Bath we knew spring had arrived with the rattling of our Georgian sash windows as the city tour bus changed down gear outside our house on its first outing with the tourists. Now in Cornwall, apart from the flowering cherry blossom, thrift,wild garlic, bluebells, campion, celandine, wild daffodils, blackthorn, lords and ladies and much more it is our breakfast visitor HG (herring gull)he has brought his mate to share the discarded crusts - that's spring - and love!

David Simmons, Pinner, middlesex
The sun is shinning a clear sign of spring having arrived. Daffodils and tulips in my garden are in abundance and peacock butterflies are enjoying the nectar from the aubretia. Blue tits frequenting the bird feeders and wood pidgeons, nesting in neighbours leylandii trees are mating frequently. I have four clematis plants in my garden and the most spectacular of them is the Horn of Plenty that graces my front door. All are in bud ready to give me a show of true beauty.Such a lovely time of the year, long may it last.

Julie, Rotherham
I have heard two Chiff Chaffs in Rotherham, week commencing 2nd April!Are the migratory birds early?

Beth Porter, East Sussex
After an erratic winter -- during which the forsythia bloomed throughout and which even saw a delicate passionfruit flower dare to open before being scared off by a brief icy blast -- one of the most worrying things was the absence of new toadlets. Normally by early March there are scores of them braving their way into the big wide world. This year I only saw two.On the plus side, the primulas I'd planted out from their gift basket are thriving in my rock garden and now scream out in purple, red and yellow.For the first time, a Pied Wagtail joined the usual feathered visitors to my bird feeders [gorgeous brazen crows, wood pigeons, robins, starlings, magpies, sparrows, and just the other day, a few bluetits].And one more springtime hopeful: that new rosebush I'd planted which played dead all last year has started to push out some leaves.I watch and wait!

Paul Evans, Shropshire, April 4
This is great. There is a real excitement about spring in these first responses. Do keep them coming and tell friends and family to write in with what they see too. Quite a few people have commented on oak trees leafing early. The same thing happened last year here in Shropshire. I wonder if the old rhyme - oak before the ash, we're going to have a splash, ash before the oak, we're going to have a soak - means that we're in for a dry summer this year (it's predicted by weather forecasters too)? For me at the moment, white violets in scrub woodland recolonising limestone quarry spoil are particularly beautiful and I saw a swallow a few days ago - has anyone else?

Elizabeth McEwan, Dumfriesshire
Saturday March 17th, a cold bright morning. After pottering in the garden we take a coffee break and sit to admire some of our 10,000 daffodils. A great impression of Spring, you must agree, but the best was still to come. Our first sighting of three baby red squirrels in one of our trees. For almost an hour they entertained and delighted us with their agile exploring, quickly gaining new balancing skills, which included two 10feet free falls.We were mezmorized and thrilled. The next day three had now become four, leaping through branches and even from tree to tree.At least one is still with us and yesterday showed us how getting food from the feeder is no problem for a cheeky youngster.Our 2 acre garden is alive with the wonders of nature which constantly delights us, but this Spring will be remembered for a long while, for the joy of watching our young red family.

Jean McCafferty, Lancaster
Two male wheatears seen at Crina Bottom, south-west of Ingleborough, Western Yorkshire Dales, on Sunday April 1st.

Neil Coleman, Lewisham
Very early small white butterfly in Regent's Park, Central London, the first butterfly of the year; next was another last week outside my window at home. 'May' blossom opened on the hedge outside last Saturday alongside the one blackthorn sapling, so early that the 'Springwatch' couldn't accept it as it was earlier than last year's record! In Dulwich Wood saw the first chiffchaff, two comma butterflies, wood anenomes and bluebells getting ready to open.

stephen moody
Whilst eagerly awaiting the first cuckoo and the blue bells that fill me with a feeling of happiness with their memories of childhood and recollections of warm spring days gone by, I content myself with the earlier signs of spring to come. The dog violets are out in the forest now and the occasional celandine and in amongst the bluebell leaves the brilliant white wood anemones. The pussy willows are splendid and the first oak and silver birch tree leaves are venturing out. One can almost see the horse chestnut leaf buds bursting forth hour by hour, soon to explode into glorious green. Last year we took my 80 year old mother up onto Rockford common in the New Forest to hear the cuckoos, she has been getting more and more deaf over the years and could not remember the last time she had heard that wonderful sound. With the help of knowing where to go to hear them and a cardboard trumpet and new hearing aid batteries we sat on the hill and waited. The thrill to us all when she heard it again after all these years was immense, such is the magic of spring.

Alison Winser Coventry
2nd AprilSeveral times each week I take a walk up to the lake at Warwick University which is home to several species of water birds.Today the lake was at it's best in the warm spring sunshine and I saw my first ducklings of the year; tiny little yellow and brown downy ducklings, seven I think but they were milling round with such speed it was difficult to count them.I hoped to also see moor hen chicks but the nest I previously spotted is deserted now which is rather sad.Perhaps the next babies will be goslings or maybe even heron chicks.

sally ball, Caerphilly
This is another very early spring: my 1st sighting of Hawthorn in bloom was March 13th;I also saw a bluebell in flower in local woods on March 22nd. Today I picked a twig of beech on the Wenallt near here which was just coming up to budburst, I think. I could just make out the hairs which young beech leaves have. In Cardiff today some oak trees at Pentwyn were well into young leaf, the tree being really green. I have also seen oak starting in leaf in Caerphilly.Cuckoos are scarcer round here; when I was a girl in Sevenoaks my earliest hearing of one was 18th April. In May they really did sing all day. I am sending my photo of early hawthorn via e-mail

Sue Murfin Pembrokeshire
Spring began early here with a clump of wild primroses on a South facing bank in flower by early February. By mid February the roadside banks and many patches of woodland were alive with masses of snowdrops. These are mostly gone now, only to be replaced by hoards of primroses - Magic! The clifftop yesterday was awash with brilliant celandines, with a little ground ivy and some dog violets for contrast. The hedgerows are white with blackthorn, and today I saw a hawthorn hedge in new leaf. The rooks seem to have more or less finished building and are making less noise!

Maureen MacGregor, Hereford, 3rd April 2007
Yes I,m listening for the cuckoo and heard a pidgeon imitating the sound. I've seen butterflies and also a blackbird's egg dropped or stolen from a nest. Flowers are advanced but I am still lighting the fire at night.

Jon, Somerset
It was great to see dafodils this year on St Davids day as usual, having been two weeks late last year.