This may be a little premature, but I’m calling it nonetheless: winter is showing signs of receding. I say this in the knowledge that a number of major snow and ice forecasts – akin to last year’s Beast From the East one – have been bandied about lately (though whether they will actually come to pass remains to be seen).

We have a long way to go yet, but at least it’s no longer pitch black at 4.30 p.m. – nowadays, the sun begins to set shortly after 5 p.m. – which has been a source of great joy for me. I look forward to welcoming longer days: to casting off heavy coats and scarves and embracing the sun … but I’m well aware that all of those hopes remain distant, for now. It will most likely be March before I can think of abandoning my coat, for example, but the goal is within sight.

I recently visited my much-loved Botanic Gardens, where I engaged in one of my favourite pastimes: nature photography! I wanted to explore the place, and to capture the tiny, yet rapidly emerging signs of spring.

I love observing branches during winter, when no leaves obscure them and you can witness the full scope of their diversity: the thin branches, the thick ones, the flexible, the rigid, the twisted, the gnarled, the jagged, the smooth, the poker-straight, and everything in between.

Birds are building their nests…

… and dormant buds are beginning to awaken.

Observing the ceaseless cycles of nature reminds me of all that is good in this world.