Brigg, Lincolnshire: With harvest approaching, we’re putting the glorious long evenings to good use, and both humans and insects are working hard to protect the crops

There’s something magical about the long evenings in June, the warmth and the way the setting sun casts long shadows across the fields. The extra hours are much-needed though as there is plenty to do.

We’re in the run-up to harvest in July, so if the weather is dry we walk up and down the seed crop tramlines, pulling out (rouging) unwanted wild oats, brome and blackgrass. They drop seeds that could contaminate not only our ground, but potentially someone else’s. Strict numbers govern how many of such plants are allowed per hectare in a seed crop, and independent inspectors check the results. Government officials in the Animal and Plant Health Agency will even walk the higher quality seed crops.

St Dominic, Tamar Valley: As spring progresses, the luminous beech foliage and thick cherry blossom have gone, and I find a grass snake sunning itself

Rain in early May has helped alleviate the dearth of April showers. Along narrow lanes, the drifts of bluebells, interspersed with cow parsley, campions and seeding stitchwort, are already overwhelmed by ferns. The succession of buckler, lady, hart’s-tongue, male, scaly male and soft shield – the latest to unfurl from its crozier-like fronds – will soon be topped by rampant bracken, now entwined in bryony.

Swags of hawthorn blossom overhang neglected uncut hedgerows, and landmark clumps of beech have lost that initial pellucidity of luminous foliage. Like linear stunted woods, the battered, regularly shorn deciduous growth on hedgebanks sprouts a diversity of greenery.

Brigg, Lincolnshire: We work these vehicles hard and they will have problems, but today was really not the day for a steaming bonnet

There’s never a good time for a tractor to break down, but this was exceptional timing. Late April was very dry as predicted, and with a change in weather prospects, the birdfood seed needed to go in. The purpose of this “crop” is to fill the birds’ winter hunger gap, and it has to be sown in a narrow window: after the early May frosts, but before the soil dries out too much.

We had just delivered the trailer of seed to the field, and were on the road returning to the farm, to collect the rolls that press the seed into the soil. As we passed through Brigg, the lights appeared on the dashboard and steam started to appear from the bonnet. This was our smallest and newest tractor. Hurriedly, we pulled into a driveway, water pouring from under the engine. Half on and half off the road, we started to collect traffic behind us. A quick look justified a call to the tractor dealers – it was a tricky job and the clock was ticking.

Staunton Country Park, Havant: Against my black fleece, this arachnid is startlingly vivid. In the fresh green of the beech canopy, it disappears

The forecast had promised warm spring sunshine – ideal weather for a forest bathing class. Instead, a squally shower arrived without warning, and we ended up hugging tree trunks more out of necessity than mindfulness. In full leaf, the mature beech grove canopy would have kept us dry, but this early in the season, the leaves had only just unfurled, letting the rain through to saturate my jumper. For a while, we listened in silence as the foliage changed its voice, a dry whisper deepening into a steady, percussive patter.

Thankfully, the downpour passed as quickly as it had arrived. Light filtered through the leaves, and we drifted back along the path until the trees opened into a small clearing. The instructor suggested that we sit on a semi-circle of fallen trunks, urging us to feel the texture of the rough-stalked feather moss (Brachythecium rutabulum) cushioning our makeshift benches. Flasks were passed around, the nettle and chamomile tea offering a welcome warmth.

West Dartmoor, Devon: On the moor, every puddle and pool is quivering with whirligig beetles, carving circles and rotating in pairs

A calm, clear morning on Dartmoor and the shallow pools I pass are smooth as glass – scattered wedges of sky reflected between the grass and gorse. I am wandering the western edge of the moor, close to the village of Lydford, best known for its plunging gorge and waterfall. This is a place shaped by rain, from the peat bogs blanketing high ground to the rocky gullies carved by streams.

There are endless puddles and pools, and on this windless day they appear completely flat and still. Only when I look closely, I see that something is agitating the surfaces of the water. Every one of them quivers with life: whirligig beetles.

Langstone, Hampshire: Solitary bees, albeit hundreds of them, are hovering low to the ground, hoping to mate before nightfall

One of the 68 UK-recorded species of mining bee in the genus Andrena, the ashy mining bee (Andrena cineraria) is classified as solitary. Yet on the narrow, balding strip of turf in front of my neighbours’ garage, they appear anything but.

The ground shimmers with movement, as several hundred bees hover low in the spring sunshine. While each female maintains her own burrow – a neat, pencil-eraser-sized hole excavated in the bare, sun-warmed soil – they’ve gathered here in a dense aggregation, turning this modest patch into a bustling settlement.

Hogshaw, Derbyshire: The old Buxton tip is now an area rich in nature. It’s depressing that our ‘progressive’ local council wants to develop it

Our old Buxton tip might bear the scars of former abuse, but it’s now an entangled, self-willed wood, largely made up of willows and birch, which is surrounded by flowers in summer and has a species list of 870, composed mainly of insects. The diversity arises because these two pioneer trees are among the most invertebrate-friendly in our islands.

Where you find insect abundance, you’ll also hear birdsong, because the music is fuelled largely by invertebrate protein. Recently we organised a dawn-chorus walk and managed 20 early spring vocalists. Song and mistle thrushes, dunnocks and wrens, as well as bullfinches and greenfinches, were among the breeding birds we heard and which are red- or amber-listed by the British Trust for Ornithology.

Citizen science data reveals early flowering, nesting and insect activity as global heating accelerate seasonal change

Bluebells are flowering, swallows are returning and orange-tip butterflies are flying in what could become Britain’s earliest recorded spring.

Records for early spring occurrences are being smashed as 2026 looks to be the earliest this century for frogspawn laying, blackbirds nesting, brimstone butterflies emerging and hazel flowering, according to Nature’s Calendar, which has logged citizen science records of seasonal change since 2000.

As the clocks go forward and the UK enters British summer time, the Guardian photographer Sarah Lee has been trying to distract herself from gloomy world news by focusing on the miracles of springtime and coming of longer days

From tender broad beans and cheek-puckering rhubarb to nutty new potatoes, make the most of the season’s best

Elderflower
Pick on the sunniest May days, when their scent is heady and sweet, to infuse for cordial. For a truly special tipple, pour a litre of gin into a large, shallow dish, and stand as many elderflower heads, florets down, as fit for two hours. Drain, bottle, and enjoy with tonic and ice on a warm evening.

St Dominic, Tamar Valley: Our wooded enclave is alive again with bursting magnolia and questing bumblebees, while primroses amass on the lanes

Brilliant yellow daffodils and the pale foam of the first fruit tree blossom (cherry plum or myrobalan) draw attention from the lichens and mosses that have thrived in winter’s rain and mild gloom.

At home, in this steep orchard and encroaching woodland, the ground was used as a market garden until the 1950s. Hardy, old fashioned narcissi from those days still flower, many in their original rows and plots. Earliest to emerge are the yellows of double Van Sion (known locally as the Lent lily), Henry Irving with dainty trumpets on long stems, Princep, Helios and Carlton, already fading and past their best, succeeded by Victoria. A woodpecker has drummed for weeks and particularly cheering is the sound of a chiffchaff, returned to this partially wooded enclave.