Following on from a conversation in the pub and a phone in this morning on BBC radio Solent (South Hampshire) I was wondering what other unusual or early spring events had forum users seen??

The examples phoned it and heard locally. :

Nesting Birds

People still cutting their grass

Raspberries ripening

Snakes out in the the sunshine

Hedgehogs

Multiple examples of flowers in bloom months early (Daffodil, primrose, roses, gladioli etc etc)

As it is less than 2 weeks before the days start getting longer again, will nature catch out nature?? Or will we just miss our winter out in the way the Americans think will happen in the Northern USA this year??

It doesn't matter if we miss out on winter as such, it only takes a couple of sharp frosts to do enormous damage. Nature will catch nature out. I think that happened in 1998, we had very mild February but a very wet April with a notable wintry spell mid month. 

Same here

I sighted a very rare cold outlier in the ensembles earlier on today. .

Daff close to blossoming 10 weeks early:

Fungi happily growing. Usually they finish in October:

Squirrels also seem very active and confused. Has spring arrived or is this the onset of autumn?

All daffodils planted in October are up and between 2 and 4 inches tall. Looks weird to see them as the days are darkening. 

I must admit, I've been chomping at the bit in terms of cutting the grass as my lawn is looking very lush and thick. Conditions has been reasonable for it in the past couple of days so I've been very good at fighting the temptation. There is also a single rose in full bloom on the side border but it does look a bit solitary on this windy cloudy dull afternoon.
   Next door's nasturtiums is threatening to take over half the harbour area as there hadn't been a proper killing frost to stop that growth in it's track.

Great photo Brian; we have been discussing this on the gardening thread.

Now to top the daff bragging - there are possibly 100 and certainly over 50 daffodils in full bloom on the municipal grass in front of the local fire station. There have been some in full flush for 2 weeks. Certainly a record for here since I started recording earliest opening times 19 years ago.

Ceanothus (aka Californian lilac) in bloom here

I saw a Greater Titted Geordie Bird dressed in what looked like beachwear.

Then again, they dress like that whatever the weather

In 'all year round' plumage 

Sorry you had to see that 

These daffodils were open on 5th December
Note they are also this rather small type which have been bred to flower as early as possible.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4757636

Interesting to see those little narcissi blooming- but they are not the full on daffodil growing here by the dozen.

Note the earliest flowering times I've recorded for these particular ones over the last twelve years. The date is for the first fully opened flower I saw (rather than a bud). I agree these are all early dates but I've never seen a November flower here before. The 2011 date was for 2 blooms only.

Posters might be able to speculate what the weather link was because the autumn/ winter weather didn't always correlate with the earliest flowering dates maybe.

2004 (Jan 7 2005)

2005 (Jan 12 2006)

2006 Dec 19

2007 Dec 24

2008 Dec 22

2009 Dec 31 There seemed to be buds on Dec 3 but they never opened fully

2010 Jan 10 2011 (shoots seen Nov 16 2010)

2011  Dec 14

2012  Dec 28

2013 Dec  26

2014 Dec 19

Sorry-forgot to add 2015- Nov 24!

Potential date record is up for grabs on the 17th December ?

 My birthday is in mid Feb and generally if the daffs are in bloom for it where I live the winter has been very mild. This year is just ludicrous. 

Saw one daff in full bloom in one of the front garden of a house in Langley area and few other areas are coming up from the ground.  I am wondering if they all open by Jan or early Feb we have no daffodils on blooming by Spring time and not good for traders sell them as they won't have any more by March/April.   In Cyprus when I used to live daffs opens in Jan and finished by early Feb and bulbs does not survive for another winter due to hot baking ground so it have to be planted every year during early Autumn.

Waiting for that first frost I've just this week trimmed and put my fuchsias inside for the winter, all of them were still in full leaf and some still flowering even now so I hope I haven't damaged them in any way because usually they have dropped nearly all leaf and finished flowering some time ago, a bit confusing as to what to do for the best this winter. My hydrangeas were still blooming well a couple of weeks ago till the wife chopped their heads off, got to fill the recycle bin up she said.

Something else I saw last week which I thought strange was a flock of Long Tailed Tits, (I think you'd call them a flock, not sure). I know they do move around in groups but this was different, there were hundreds and hundreds of them, maybe thousands as I couldn't see behind the tree line they were flying over, never seen that before and then the day after that there was this article on one of the news station about some guy filming thousands and thousands of geese heading somewhere, I thought wow coincidence?! looked like a clip out of that film The Day after Tomorrow.