Frog Spawn and Badger Loo's

The progression into Spring is far from linear, and with northerly winds keeping temperatures well down into single figures, there was not much spring cheer obvious to the eye or ear.
A single Small Quaker was the only moth to trouble the trap and Chiffchaffs failed to match their earliest previous arrival dates.

Somewhat struggling out on the patch, I remembered a small area that regularly floods into a shallow 'pond' due to water seeping to the surface.
On reaching the area, I noticed a couple of plants to check back on, but my main target was pleasingly present, a clump of Frog Spawn with a few tadpoles flicking around.

I'm not sure how sustainable this area is to see the tadpoles through to maturity, but it was nice to find this early spring benchmark. There was a sudden 'plop' and a few ripples on the other side of the water, but despite scanning the area for a while I couldn't locate what could have been one of the parents in waiting.
Moving on I ventured slightly off track to check the damp wooded area away from the set aside. I quickly discovered a couple of well defined fresh scrapes. These were typical of Badger toilet activity. When they emerge in the evening they scrape out a hole. The scat is typically dark and muddy, so these two scrapes fitted the bill. Oh for a trail cam, it would be a good area to try and get some images.

One of the Badger 'deposits' 

On the walk back to the car I checked a small Gorse bush out, finding three 7 Spot Ladybirds close together, like me, waiting for things to warm up a bit more.