From early birds to emerging butterflies: UK shows signs of earliest spring on record

An 80-year study of great tits in an Oxfordshire woods has recorded its earliest egg-laying this spring. Photograph: Andrew Darrington/Alamy

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.