Spiky stars of summer's golden gang

Airedale, West Yorkshire Goldfinches bicker among the chromium yellows of gorse and laburnum

It's been a good year for gorse. Perhaps the dryish winter helped. All across the north of England I've seen the plant's reckless spatters of chromium yellow bristling with the promise of stonechats and whitethroats.

Some trace the origins of the word gorse to an Anglo-Saxon word for wasteland (this, Ulex europaeus, is a species of poor soil and open skies) but others relate it ultimately to the Greek for hedgehog, which is much more satisfying.