Lauded by Wordsworth for their ‘glittering countenance’, the appearance of the first celandines and the swallow’s return to our shores are Ian Morton’s favourite, and much anticipated, harbingers of spring.
The nation waits — when will the first swallows be sighted? Records kept since Victorian times indicate March as the most likely month, although the migrants often arrive earlier. Hampshire naturalist and diarist Gilbert White noted in his Natural History…
