A TINY, fat wren was poking around in the garden, moving silently beneath what greenery there was.

In fact, when it is first seen moving underneath the leaves one could well think it was a mouse.

With its short, upright tail standing up like a flag pole, it was on the lookout for spiders and any other kind of small insects to feed on and, judging by the look of its plump body, it was not doing so badly this winter.

Something that cannot be wrongly identified are literally thousands of snowdrops in bloom on the gloomy hedgerows around the village.

These beautiful flowers that only open wide when the sun is bright, provide an early feast for bees which in turn pollinate the flowers, thus enabling their bulbs to split and provide an even bigger spread of white the following year.

In fact, there were probably a dozen honey bees buzzing around, then pitching on the flowers and disappearing up inside to get at the pollen. Quite early in the year for these honey makers I thought.

I took a walk around the village and took particular interest in the wealth of dead brambles that were on one of the untrimmed hedges and I soon spotted some tiny white mushrooms growing on a dead blackberry stem.

Lovely

The largest of the four fungi was less than an inch across, about 18mm, and they were Marasmius ramealis that are cousins of the Marasmius oreades – which is the world famous Fairy ring champignon that grow on grass and are collected and dried for use in the kitchen.

I only found one solitary Spring Crocus out in bloom on a sheltered spot with its lovely purple flower on a yellow base.

There are several places in Quethiock where crocuses will soon be standing on the top of garden walls.

For a couple of weeks I have been keeping my eye on what I thought were the stalks and leaves of some Spring snowflake plants beside the road in the village.

However, now one of them has yellow flowers on the top of the stalks and I knew that they were not what I thought they were.

So I was forced to knock on the door of a nearby house and the occupant came out to look at these yellow blooms and as soon as Pat saw them, she told me they were Narcissus Cheerfulness flowers that she had planted on the ground that is the edge of her garden, some 20 years ago.

So, members of the Daffodil family and not Snowflakes. I live and learn.