First Butterfly - and Bullfinches

At last! Later than usual - thanks to this delayed spring and events conspiring to keep me indoors too much - I have seen my first butterfly of the year. It was, unsurprisingly, a Brimstone, and it delivered that unfailing thrill, never to be repeated until next spring, and that lift of the heart heralding the arrival of another butterfly season, with who knows what in store. Last year's was my best in a long time, with my species count (not that I'm that kind of spotter, not really) getting above 30, virtually all of them seen close to home. Today's glorious Brimstone, flying strongly but meanderingly, was the first of some half dozen. The sun was out, the sky enamel blue with a few bright white clouds, and I was on only my second visit of the year to my favourite piece of ancient oak common (Ashtead Common). The first thing I saw - even before the first Brimstone - was a Kestrel being chased away by a crow, and I kept encountering that same bird throughout my walk, perched on the lookout on the highest trees, hovering and circling, and finally, as I left, swooping onto some small prey in the grass with apparent success, though he took off empty-taloned. I saw nothing very unusual - being there was enough, walking in sun, stopping to absorb the beauty of clear spring light on the trunks of ancient oaks and on branches green and grey with lichen, and enjoying the first subtle colour changes of spring, the faint haziness and shimmer of distant trees in bud... I was enjoyably lost in an area of bracken and thorn and birch when I came across a party of four Bullfinches - two pairs (they're believed to pair for life) - and was inordinately excited, as I've seen very few in recent years. These strikingly beautiful birds used to be a common garden sight in my boyhood, though they were unpopular with gardeners who valued their fruit trees (the Bullfinches delight in stripping the flower buds). Now it is a different story, and across the country populations have plummeted... Readers of Hardy might recall that Mrs D'Urberville kept Bullfinches in the house, and one of Tess's duties was to whistle to them. They were popular pet songbirds, renowned as ready learners, good at picking up any tune around them - Tess was extending their repertoire, while they, for their part, were contributing their mite to the symbolism of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.