April 12

It’s called April weather here. One day it’s warm and sunny, the next day it can snow. That snow can even remain on the ground. Or it rains and storms, anything is possible. Meanwhile, the spring flowers are happily smiling, they don’t care what the weather is like. Sunshine, then they open up, cold, then they close down.

By mid-April, almost all of southern Sweden is covered with trillions of “vitsippor”, white wood anemones. You see them everywhere, in the forest, in gardens, along the roads, except in the typically Swedish neatly mowed lawns.

The vitsippor are preceded by the “blåsippor”, blue anemones, which are sometimes spotted as early as late March. Very small blue flowers with completely different leaves than the vitsippor.

At the same time, all the deciduous trees are still completely bare. Bushes are slowly starting to bud. Here and there, a butterfly, a bee, a fly flies by. The birds are still hungry. Especially now that the blue tits and great tits that have stayed all winter are facing competition from countless other birds in all colors that have wintered in more southern regions and return this month. And let’s not forget the competition from the fat squirrel, who boldly sits on a branch in the bare apple tree, emptying a holder of sunflower seeds for the birds. Meanwhile, a entire family of small brown birds is scurrying around under the tree finding whole sunflower seeds among the shells.