February began in similar vein to the last half of January with bitterly cold, strong Easterly winds, grey skies and some rain. (January was logged as 0.5 degrees C colder than the 30 year average by the Met Office).

A rare recent sunny interlude on February 4th allowed snowdrops to open wide, but it’s still so cold that I have yet to see any bees in the garden in 2026. This is the first year this has happened since honey bee colonies were set up about 6 years ago. I fear several if not all may have succumbed this winter, already.

As a consequence, the snowdrops will likely persist for longer than usual.

A fluke sequence of events led me to finding a recently killed woodcock in our lower stream field, which I’ve written up on a separate blog post here. Some basic forensic work on my part led me to conclude that it was probably killed by a hunting tawny or barn owl.

Leaving it in situ through the following day and night saw it being completely devoured – probably by a fox which regularly passes through this meadow.

By February 10th, the weather pattern hadn’t changed – more grey, rain and wind. Yet it didn’t deter the frogs, which began their annual spawning on February 7th, with 48 clumps in the upper pond, increasing by about 40 more clumps each morning for the next 3 days, in their usual location on the easterly bank.

Or the birds from singing or bathing.

No sunrises at all to admire, but I did spot a single honey bee outside one of the hives on the 9th, so perhaps all is not lost. Snowdrops continued to emerge as did Crocus in the garden and the meadows, though the latter have rarely opened.

However the current forecast shows no respite in the weather, so open flowers and significant seed set look unlikely this year.

Even the first daffodil buds are showing in the meadow, by February 9th.

And the Malus/Sorbus copse is showing more flowers appearing daily.

Sadly, the weather for the month stayed locked into grey, wet, cold mode, with a wonderful notable exception of the morning of Valentine’s Day, February 14th, when we had a cloudless sky, and gorgeous birdsong. By lunchtime, cloud cover was once again 100%. Which continued on many subsequent mornings, as below.

However even before that, a thrill was enjoying a brief moment on the 11th, when 4 of our on site honey bee ‘hives’ had signs of bee activity. If only for a couple of hours. This is the latest start to any spring bee activity that we’ve observed in the several years that we have had on-site honey bees. It’s just been too cold for them to even begin to explore the many flowers in the garden waiting to entice them.

We enjoyed a wonderful visit from a group of gardeners on February 17th who managed to dodge the rain, and thoroughly enjoyed their time in the garden, and as we headed into our first open weekend of the year, with many visitors pre-booked, and another dull wet forecast, we hope that our paths will bear up under the soggy conditions. This image shows how poor light levels have consistently been so far this month, despite rapidly lengthening days.

Fiona has as always got her cake baking sorted, and the garden looks amazingly lovely despite the weather this year. The snowdrops seem entirely happy with the weather.   

Our first garden weekend visitors fared even better, with those on Sunday 22nd enjoying the best day of the whole month, with sunshine and light winds. The honey bees were out in force, the Crocus opened, and I saw the first bumblebee queen of the year. In between morning and afternoon visitors, I whizzed around the whole garden to take more pictures.

It’s been a wonderful year for frogspawn in both ponds, and even a ditch – perhaps 300 clumps in total.

After one of our very rare, brief, pink/grey cloud skies at dawn, (these colours are untweaked – as seen),

the month finished with another glorious day of sunshine and clouds to remind us that if it just stopped raining for a few days, the ground could begin to dry out, which brought yet more daffodils out in time for March 1st, St. David’s Day.

A final huge lift to our spirits was our first lamb arriving in the evening of February 28th, to our dear ewe ‘Jetfire’. That she has made it to experience her first parturition is remarkable, after having both eyes and her tail brutally attacked by an unknown bird, probably a kite, crow or raven, about 10 days previously. The images of her at the time are simply too gruesome to include. We’ve called her ewe lamb, ‘Mary (Poppins’) after the pale yellow hoop petticoat daffodil which we planted last autumn to see if they will flourish here. Seen below with its brasher cousin ‘Casual Elegance’. Having reached the letter ‘m’ for this year’s probably very few lambs. The month’s weather data paints the picture of a disappointing, gloomy month – the dullest, if not wettest since I’ve recorded such information, with only 1 dry 24 hour period, and only a few half sunny days. Sadly, March is going to begin with the same weather pattern. Rainfall total was 227.9 mm, with only 2 frosts – 1 to minus 7 degrees C for part of the night. The PV inverter toral was 94.12 KWH. The previous low was 111 KWH in 2017. So less intense rain than several Februarys, but more persistent dull, damp weather.

Here are my weather records for February, since I’ve been recording them, with maximum/minimum readings.

2014: 349.1mm rain, No dry days No frosts. No snow, PV N/A

2015: 108 mm rain, 14 dry days, Frosts and Snow. PV N/A

2016: 193.1 mm, 8 dry days, Some frosts, snow. PV 180 KWH

2017: 149.9 mm rain, 7 dry days, No frosts or snow. PV 111 KWH

2018: 103 mm rain, 10 dry days, Frosts light snow. PV 202 KWH

2019: 135.7 mm rain, 10 dry days Frosts to minus 10 Snow, 207 KWH

2020: 357mm rain, 2 dry days, Frosts and light snow. PV 139.1 KWH

2021: 354mm rain, 10 dry days, 6 Frosts to minus 7, PV 135.2 KWH

2022: 254.3mm rain, 5 dry days, No frosts/snow, PV 128 KWH

2023: 31.2 mm rain, 14 dry days, Frosts no snow, PV 188 KWH

2024: 273mm rain, 1 dry day, 1 frost to minus 2 Deg C, No snow PV 115.2 KWH

2025:180 mm rain, 11 dry days, 2 days frost to minus 3 Deg C, no snow PV 140 KWH

2026: 227.9 mm, 1 dry day, 2 frosts to minus 7 Deg C, no snow PV 94.12 KWH