WE all look forward to March as the official start of spring, but in reality preparation for the wake-up season has started already and it all began on Tuesday, December 22 – the Winter Solstice.

Since then, lengthening days and occasional bird-song have been welcome indicators, as has the appearance of some very early spring wildflowers.

Some plants have been bamboozled into blooming at completely the wrong time by the ridiculously warm winter we have just had in Ryedale, but others flowering this month have always done so.

Actually that's not strictly true; because general global warming has caused spring to arrive on average 11 days earlier than it did 100 years ago some species that used to appear in early February are now blooming in mid-January.

This figure was calculated taking into account a wide variety of natural events like the return of migrating birds, frogs spawning, insects emerging from hibernation and of course plants flowering.

If you were asked to name one of the first blooms to appear, what would it be? Latin scholars among you may suggest the primrose (prima rosa meaning the first rose) and those in the know might go for the snowdrop or crocus which both appear this month.

I would argue, though, that these last two don't count, being garden escapes that originated in the Mediterranean.

I suspect that few people would consider the hazel as a contender, not because its delightful catkins aren't noticeable, but because they aren’t the traditional brightly coloured blooms we would normally call flowers.

The dangly, miniature lambs tails that wag in the breeze and glow lemon-yellow in the cold, January sunshine, will probably start appearing this week, way before any leaves appear – some of you may have have seen them already.

These are the male flowers of the tree, their colour caused by millions of grains of pollen hanging on the anthers ready to be shed – give them a tap and you will see it released like a sulphurous dust-cloud.

The flower is designed to do this as hazel is a wind-pollinated plant; the faintest of breezes carries the pollen to a neighbouring hazel tree where some grains will land on the female flowers and fertilisation follows.

Unlike most other trees, hazels have separate male and female flowers. They can often be found on the same branch but they never fertilise themselves – it seems self-abuse is frowned upon in the plant kingdom as well.

Because attracting insects isn’t an issue, the female flower is also very inconspicuous, like a tiny red starfish atop a small bud, which of course later develops into the famous nut.

We have many names for the hazel tree and almost all of them refer to the nut or the hat-like calyx it sits in.

"Corylus", meaning helmet, is the hazel’s botanical name and "haesel" itself is Anglo-Saxon for head-dress.

The nuts become ripe enough to eat in late August and consequently they became associated with St Philibert whose holy day is August 20. In some parts of the country the hazel is still referred to as a filbert tree.

While there aren’t any edible hazelnuts around at the moment, you may well find the empty shells of last autumn’s harvest lying on the floor, and they can be very instructive.

Hazelnuts are a food sought-after by all sorts of animals, squirrels, mice and woodpeckers for instance, and they all leave signature entry marks.

If you find a shell with a neatly gnawed, round hole, a mouse or vole is the likely culprit, a hole muscled apart to split the shell has been squirrelled, while exploded shell fragments have probably had the woodpecker treatment.

The real celebrity hazelnut eater though, is the dormouse, far more common down south, but present in small numbers in North Yorkshire.

Although historically widespread, they were probably extinct in our county by the 1970s so two re-introduction programmes were instigated.

The first of these in 1999 was in the Helmsley area so there is a good chance that we have a small but healthy population of dormice in Ryedale.

Dormice are so difficult to see that the best way to monitor their numbers is by looking at hazelnuts shells.

A national survey is taking place at the moment, and if you would like to join in the Great Nut Hunt, then visit ptes.org/campaigns/dormice/dormouse-nut-hunt Happy hunting.