has spring sprung?

click on each of the pictures to see a bigger version
...we have just had the warmest January in about 300 years (since records began), and the last couple of days have been unseasonably warm and bright. This has encouraged plants and animals alike, into activity, much earlier than is normal. I feel sure that this has something to do with global warming, and is not just normal variation - Pen has posted about this recently.
Whatever the cause and long-term consequences, today's sun and warmth lifted my spirits no end, and as a result Pen & I took a great ruck of pictures in our garden - (from top to bottom, left to right) - white primula, sweet scented mahonia, purple heather, winter flowering clematis, snowdrop, a mason bee on viburnum flowers, cotoneaster berries and an auricula flower.

There have been quite a few bees around, yesterday we saw ladybirds and most surprisingly a red admiral butterfly fluttered across the garden today.
metcheck is forecasting up to 8 degrees of frost and seven inches of snow for later in the week - I'm not sure how all these early arrivals will cope with that...

all the pictures were taken with a Nikon D80, Sigma 50mm macro lens and a Centon ring-flash (the best £17.50 I ever spent on photo-gear)