THE first week of spring colour has just arrived much later than last year but no less welcome.

Spring is still very much in its infancy with very few species coming into flower.

However, last week a few species which have an abundance of blooms came into flower, transforming spectacularly some of our district's landscapes.

On the heathland sites, particularly Burlish Top and Hartlebury Common, European gorse has come into bloom.

This is a fiery, spiky plant which provides evergreen colour year round.

Come early spring, European gorse produces a fantastic display of brilliant yellow gorse flowers which can transform large areas of these heathlands.

The gorse not only transforms the landscape with its colours, but come a still and sunny day their scent can easily trigger often long forgotten memories.

Their fantastic scent, which strongly reminds me of coconut, often triggers some of my childhood memories of holidays in the sun or family trips to the fairground.

In hedgerows and on the fringes of the district's wetlands, another shrub is just bursting into bloom.

This is the blackthorn and, unlike the yellow flowering gorse, its blooms are a profusion of white with just the slightest hints of pink.

In places where blackthorn forms dense thickets, in and around Puxton Marshes, these flowering bushes can almost look like mounds of snow thawing in the spring sunshine giving an almost alpine impression.

Elsewhere on the marshes, there are still very little wild flowers to be seen.

However, in among the carpets of fresh new leaves the ripening flower heads of the yellow celandines can be seen starting to poke through.

I'm sure by the time this article goes to press these bulbs will have matured covering large areas of the wetlands with a glorious display of high gloss yellow flowers.

Out in the woods, things are still very colourless. However, the fresh green leaves of the bluebells are now becoming very prominent.

It won't be long before these too will come into flower. There was one woodland flower that, while not strictly native in our area, has added a welcome blast of colour to some woods over the past few weeks. This is the snowdrop.

There is a lovely bank of these deep in the woods at Hurcott Pool and these were magnificent, but the snowdrop is a short-lived flower and will have finished flowering by now.

So those wishing to find this wildlife secret at Hurcott will have to wait until next spring.