A chill wind sweeps across the flat Somerset landscape, causing me to shiver on my morning walk along the lane.

In the garden, the flowerbeds are looking sorry for themselves, while the desolate lawn won’t need mowing for at least a month.

By now I would have expected to see all four types of early spring butterfly: the small tortoiseshell, peacock, comma and brimstone. During a brief hour of sunshine last Sunday, I spotted just two.

Spring 2018 has thus far been a desolate one, and today those fluttering beauties will all be hunkered down, wishing they had never come out from their winter hidey-holes.

I would have expected to see all four types of early spring butterfly: the small tortoiseshell, peacock, comma and brimstone

Overall, it feels more like February than Eastertime. The Met Office uses March 1 as the official start of spring. Astronomers choose the spring equinox, on March 21.

Meanwhile, for most ordinary folk, the clocks going forward — as they did last weekend — is the most reliable indicator that winter is on its way out.

Yet despite all those milestones having passed, Mother Nature still doesn’t seem to have got the message.

This is partly down to the infamous ‘Beast from the East’, which brought two very heavy bouts of snow. Even the South of England was blanketed twice during March — the first time that’s happened since 1979.

The worst of this horrendous weather system may now be behind us, but we are still in the path of some cold winds, and the Easter weekend is likely to bring yet more wintry conditions.

The Met Office is forecasting that temperatures across the country will struggle to reach double figures. Up in the Scottish Highlands, freezing temperatures and the occasional flurry of snow are believed to be on their way.

A chill wind sweeps across the flat Somerset landscape, causing me to shiver on my morning walk along the lane

We nature watchers often find March frustrating, as we wait for the true signs of spring to arrive. But this year it has been particularly elusive.

All over Britain, local naturalists and conservation organisations are reporting a dearth of spring flowers, butterflies and birds. Even in the south, frogspawn is only just appearing in garden ponds, most wild flowers are not yet in bloom, and bumblebee sightings are few and far between.

Further north, the Scottish Wildlife Trust reports that hedgehogs emerging from hibernation are struggling to survive, because they simply can’t find enough food in the cold soil.

According to Matthew Oates of the National Trust, whose book, Beyond Spring, came out last year, this is one of the worst years ever for butterflies.

‘Spring 2018 has — so far at least — been much colder and later than usual,’ he says. ‘Usually by now we’d expect to have seen orange-tips, green-veined whites, large whites and holly blues — yet none have appeared anywhere.’

The caterpillars of the rare marsh fritillary, a butterfly Matthew has been observing for almost a quarter of a century near his Cotswold home, have only just emerged from their hibernation — even later than the cold spring of 1996.

Things are certainly very different from last year, when — apart from a brief cold snap at the end of April — the majority of common butterflies appeared early.

If the cold weather goes on much longer, it could have a serious effect on these delicate and beautiful creatures.

Cold weather in spring shortens the lifespans of butterflies because they need sustained spells of fair weather, as all warmth-loving insects do. This means they get less chance to lay eggs and produce the next generation.

All over Britain, local naturalists and conservation organisations are reporting a dearth of spring flowers, butterflies and birds

Migrating birds are also going missing. Normally by now there would be two or three chiffchaffs in the bushes at the end of my garden, singing with gusto as they defend their territory and try to attract a mate. Most chiffchaffs don’t migrate all the way to sub-Saharan Africa in the cold months, but spend the winter in Spain, Portugal or North Africa, which means they are the first of our summer visitors to arrive back here in spring.

In the 12 springs since we first moved down to Somerset, they have never failed to show up — until now.

In warm springs, swallows begin to arrive back in our village as early as late March — they, too, have refused to return in 2018.

They, and their cousins the martins and swifts, feed on flying insects which depend on spells of warm, settled, sunny weather. So they are in very short supply this year.

According to the British Trust for Ornithology’s online survey Birdtrack, sand martins are also appearing much later than usual, with numbers well down.

Again, I would have expected to see these hardy little birds hawking for insects over the local marshes but so far, I’ve drawn a complete blank. Meanwhile, winter visitors such as redwings and fieldfares, which usually head north from Britain towards the Arctic Circle to breed by mid-March, are still hanging around here in good numbers. After all, why fly all the way to Iceland when you can get the same weather here?

Some birds have managed to return more or less on time. Puffins have come back to the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumbria, where 40,000 pairs nest each year, despite recent storms in the North Sea which can hit these little seabirds hard.

But despite the successes of the plucky puffin, the BTO’s overall verdict is that this is a very poor start for our summer visitors that could have a disastrous impact on their breeding success.

Despite the successes of the plucky puffin, the BTO’s overall verdict is that this is a very poor start for our summer visitors that could have a disastrous impact

Its spokesman, Paul Stancliffe, says: ‘Numbers of these birds are still very low, and spring migration is still a trickle when it should be turning into a flood.’

The big question is whether this late start to the breeding season affects the birds in the longer term.

According to Stancliffe: ‘If the weather turns fine and warm from mid-April onwards, then the impact will be minimal.’ But he sounds a warning. ‘If spring is still struggling to get going in two weeks’ time, I think we should start to be worried.’

Meanwhile, what’s happening to those birds who don’t head overseas in search of a warm winter?

Those that managed to survive the cold snaps — including wrens, robins and goldfinches — are now singing lustily outside my office window.

But for them to start nesting when it’s as cold as it has been this spring can be risky.

While a bird is sitting on its eggs, in most cases she will be able to keep them warm whatever the weather.

The danger comes when the chicks hatch and the parents have to leave their offspring alone while they head off to find food. Being so small and helpless, the youngsters can easily freeze to death.

Some small birds, such as blue and great tits, must find as many as a thousand caterpillars every single day to feed their hungry brood. If it is cold and wet, this difficult task only becomes more arduous.

So, how does this spring compare with previous years?

Spring 2013 was one of the coldest on record, with March actually colder than during the Big Freeze of 1963. That year, I was trying to film a TV series on Britain’s wildlife, and virtually every living thing, from adders to stag beetles and bluebells to the large blue butterfly, appeared at least a fortnight — and in some cases as much as a month — later than usual.

The danger comes when the chicks hatch and the parents have to leave their offspring alone while they head off to find food

This year, 2018 has, thankfully, not been that bad. But it might have been an awful lot better.

In 2011 we enjoyed the warmest April on record, with lashings of hawthorn blossom whitening our hedgerows, oak trees coming into bud and, in our ancient woodlands, displays of bluebells at their finest. Many sightings were a full month earlier than we saw in the cold two years later.

Now, as our wildlife struggles through another miserably chilly spring, and we humans look forward wistfully to leaving our winter coats at home, there is at least one ray of hope.

Matthew Oates, who retires next month from a long and distinguished career as the National Trust’s resident naturalist, says that this year feels like a throwback to ‘old-fashioned springs, which were much later and slower’. Certainly, the forecast across Britain for the next ten days or so shows plenty of rain.

As he points out, we’ve got used to winters being mainly mild —especially in the south — and spring coming earlier and earlier. But that’s not how it used to be.

Maybe this is just a return to ‘proper weather’, following which, he says ‘when spring does come, it will be even more wondrous, and less likely to turn sour’.

Here’s hoping he’s right. Happy Easter!