A Truly Golden Spring for Buttercups and Dandelions

This spring has brought unusually large blooms of snowdrops in February and dandelions in April. Driving out of upper Dovedale, I spotted a blanket of gold covering a slope near Sheen Hill in Staffordshire.

The flowers created a seamless carpet, each bloom at similar height, transforming the landscape into a single golden hue. The term “carpet” is often overused, but here it was appropriate.

Despite their uniform appearance, dandelions comprise about 240 species in Britain. My friend Baz Scampion, co-author of “The Dandelions of Shetland,” calls the topic “a little niche.” He and his co-author identified 130 species on one archipelago.

I noted that bumblebees and solitary bees in the genus Andrena appreciated April’s dandelions, unlike municipal mowing crews. At dawn in Dovedale, amid redstart and willow warbler songs, dew-soaked fields glittered with dandelion clocks.

Above the hamlet of Snitterton, I encountered a different gold: hundreds of thousands of buttercups across a hillside. Unlike dandelions, the three common buttercup species vary in height, creating a gold-stippled canvas reminiscent of Seurat rather than Rothko. The beauty moved me to raise my hands and swirl.

The collection “Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024” is available at guardianbookshop.com.