Even though the weather is chilly outside, there are definite signs of Spring to be seen.

Service users from the reporting team at our Consett Centre have been looking around the Walled Garden at Minsteracres to see what evidence they could see that Spring is on its way.

Adam Millward and Elizabeth Sheard took the camera out and despite the cold air managed to get some nice photographs of some early snowdrops and buds on the trees.

Adam said:

“At Minsteracres we have been looking for signs of Spring. I noticed that the snow drops are flowering near the car park. There will be many more to come. We get a lot of them under the trees. We have also been cleaning out the bird box. It has a camera inside so we can watch any birds that build a nest on the TV. We also noticed that there are new buds and shoots on the plants outside the cottage. Spring is definitely in the air.”

The nesting box with the camera in the roof is positioned up a tree in the woods around the back of the centre. It has been there for two years. In 2010 we had a family of Great Tits nesting in it. It was amazing for us all to be able to see the birds building the nest, the eggs hatching and then the chicks growing quickly into young birds and flying off.

Unfortunately the nest remained empty last year. So with the box cleaned out we are hoping to see a new family of birds settle in the coming months.

If they do we are planning to keep a diary about their stay and hopefully capture some video from the camera to put onto our website.