Spring
Page 6
To-day through the window-pane I see a lark high up against the grey cloud, and hear his song. I cannot walk about and arrange with the buds and gorse-bloom; how does he know it is the time for him to sing? Without my book and pencil and observing eye, how does he understand that the hour has come? To sing high in the air, to chase his mate over the low stone wall of the ploughed field, to battle with his high-crested rival, to balance himself on his trembling wings outspread a few yards above the earth, and utter that sweet little loving kiss, as it were, of song – oh, happy, happy days! So beautiful to watch as if he were my own, and I felt it all! It is years since I went out amongst them in the old fields, and saw them in the green corn; they must be dead, dear little things, by now. Without me to tell him, how does this lark to-day that I hear through the window know it is his hour?
The green hawthorn buds prophesy on the hedge; the reed pushes up in the moist earth like a spear thrust through a shield; the eggs of the starling are laid in the knot-hole of the pollard elm – common eggs, but within each a speck that is not to be found in the cut diamond of two hundred carats – the dot of protoplasm, the atom of life. There was one row of pollards where they always began laying first. With a big stick in his beak the rook is blown aside like a loose feather in the wind; he knows his building-time from the fathers of his house – hereditary knowledge handed down in settled course: but the stray things of the hedge, how do they know? The great blackbird has planted his nest by the ash-stole, open to every one’s view, without a bough to conceal it and not a leaf on the ash – nothing but the moss on the lower end of the branches. He does not seek cunningly for concealment. I think of the drift of time, and I see the apple bloom coming and the blue veronica in the grass. A thousand thousand buds and leaves and flowers and blades of grass, things to note day by day, increasing so rapidly that no pencil can put them down and no book hold them, not even to number them – and how to write the thoughts they give? All these without me – how can they manage without me?
For they were so much to me, I had come to feel that I was as much in return to them. The old, old error: I love the earth, therefore the earth loves me – I am her child – I am Man, the favoured of all creatures. I am the centre, and all for me was made.
Richard Jefferies, ‘Hours of Spring’, Field and Hedgerow; Being the Last Essays of Richard Jefferies, 1889
I have come to the loch today to write my journal precisely because it is such an uplifting morning. I don’t normally. My routine is to take rough notes as it pleases me and return to my desk after a walk and write it up at some idle moment of the day when pressing things are done. But after the long winter there are forces inside desperate to get out when the day is seductive and anodyne like today. Winter walks have been fine – good, bracing, ear-tingling sorties, often more to do with gloves and scarves and steaming breath than with observation of wildlife and any focused attempt to feel at one with the natural world. Back then the feel-good factor came afterwards, a ‘well-I-did-it’ glow of achievement only experienced when I was back at the fireside, quite different from this ‘what-a-hell-of-a-place-to-sit-and-work’ sensation that’s overwhelming me today.
There are other reasons for being here right now. Some years the Highland spring can last for only a few days. May is still capable of snow showers, although they won’t stay – ‘lambing storms’, my crofter neighbours call them, with that terse and comprehending cynicism that so often defines their byre and baler-twine brand of wisdom, garnered over centuries of hard-won pragmatism – sending everything scurrying for cover again for as long as they last. And then June can suddenly soar to lofty temperatures on static anti-cyclonic highs that dawdle through long days of mackerel-feathered, cirro-stratus blue. Searing through thin, dry air the UV is merciless, bringing a first ruddy blush to the pallid cheeks of winter. Before we know it, summer is firing in.
These bug-free early days must be grabbed. The Highland midge, that scourge of humid days to come, is as yet still a maggoty little larva hiding in its millions in the peaty ooze of the marsh. But the earth is absorbent, the warmth of the sun is piercing and probing deep into the soil and the damp, winter-killed vegetation. The great reawakening, silent and invisible, is mustering its armies twenty-four hours a day. Soon the insect harvest will erupt in all its rampant, multifarious forms, from the exquisitely refined, like the first speckled wood butterflies that any day now will delicately lift from the path beneath my feet, to the execrable great diving beetle, the scourge of the loch’s edge, whose calliper-mandibled larva lurks among the rotting stems of last year’s water lilies, waiting for what must be its high point of the season. When the toad and frog tadpoles fatten and wiggle free from their natal plasma, this dragon of the murky shallows embarks upon a feeding frenzy, seizing tadpole after tadpole in ferocious, hypodermic jaws, injecting them with a cocktail of pernicious digestive acids which, in the space of a few minutes, without ever letting go, dissolve the tadpoles’ insides to a protein soup so that the larva can suck them dry.
From the peaty sludge in the loch’s deeps, from the soggy sedge blanket of the marsh, in the root-caves of trees, beneath the rufous bark flakes of pines, deep within dead logs and decaying fence posts, snug inside soft moss cushions and the surface inches of the soil, under rocks and stones, a horde of creeping, flying, crawling and slithering wildlife is fingering the solar pulse. Armoured legs are creaking, suckers are opening and closing, wing veins are pumping up, jaws are hungrily flexing and twitching antennae are tentatively reaching out, probing the possibilities of the future.
These are precious days of warmth and excitement, days a naturalist cannot afford to miss. If I have to go away I can’t wait to get home again, hurrying up the loch path to check out the incalculable, unsleeping and effervescent metamorphosis of spring. Dawns cry out for attendance, dusks are just as alluring. I struggle to know which to exploit, often giving in to both. To sit quietly beside the loch at either end of these rapturous spring days delivers a soul-exalting equanimity I have never achieved anywhere else in the world.
Sir John Lister-Kaye, At the Water’s Edge: A Walk in the Wild, 2010
Spring. A time of transformation. It is now that skeins of wild geese and winter wigeon yield the skies to a myriad spring-time migrants, for many people the most conspicuous sign of the changing season. Countless nature lovers wait for the first swallow, cuckoo or lark. But, lost and ignored amid the brighter, more alluring swifts, sedge warblers and sandwich terns, one of my favourite songbirds makes its triumphant return to our shores: the chiffchaff, a bird that embodies the very spirit of spring.
For me, spring commences with the first chiffchaff and its first song, often voiced from high in the canopy, the bird obscured behind a veil of fresh green leaves. The chiffchaff does not showcase the lyrical genius of the nightingale, nor does it boast the imitative skill of the marsh warbler. But the repetitive ‘chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff’ evokes bursting buds, frogspawn, daffodils, lengthier days and warmer nights. It’s a characteristic and charming tune interrupted only by a sporadic ‘hweet’ as the bird skips energetically from branch to branch.
Due to its broad habitat tolerance, the chiffchaff is often the first returning songster to be noted, arriving in late March before many other species. It is a versatile breeding bird. Unlike other spring migrants, such as the altitude-addicted ring ouzel or pernickety whinchat, the chiffchaff is unfussy and adaptive, happy with coastal thickets, conifer plantations, parks, gardens, deciduous woodlands and mature hedgerows alike.
Distinguishable from its close cousin, the willow warbler, by its black legs and constant tail flicking, the chiffchaff’s appearance is for many people not very inspiring. In fact, the humble chiff virtually embodies the term ‘little brown job’ or ‘LBJ’, a phrase thrown about by birders in relation to dull and lacklustre species. But from its glaring white supercilium to its fine, insect-snatching bill, the chiffchaff is a pleasure to behold if seen well. Its subtle shades complement the seaso
n perfectly. Young birds boast a palette of yellow and green on a par with the freshest hawthorn buds, while adults bear warmer tones reminiscent of last year’s falling leaves.
A chiffchaff’s nest is a beauty to behold if ever you get the chance. Provided you take care, a quick glance will not harm the bird. It is testament to the ingenuity of nature: a small, intricate dome of dead stems and leaves fashioned painstakingly by the female as her mate stands sentinel nearby, relentlessly defending the nest from adversaries large and small. Inside, a clutch of eggs, gleaming white and speckled with black, snuggle amid a thick layer of feathers collected by the hen. Somewhat plain eggs, dowdy-coloured, but perfect if viewed with an appreciation for simplicity. Rather like the chiffchaff itself. There truly is a lot more to this feisty, endearing bird than meets the eye. Where others might see a rather dull and vocally maladroit visitor, I see beauty and brilliance in equal measure, combined with unusual bravery for a bird no bigger than a blue tit. I encourage everyone to appreciate the chiffchaff for what it is: a seasonal sensation.
James Common, 2016
The Voice of Spring
I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o’er the mountains, with light and song.
Ye may trace my step o’er the waking earth
By the winds which tell of the violet’s birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.
I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers,
And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains;
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!
I have looked o’er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth;
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,
And the reindeer bounds o’er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright, where my step has been.
I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep blue sky,
From the night-bird’s lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan’s wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o’er the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.
Felicia Hemans, 1823
Spring arrived at Cley Marshes this morning in the shape of a bird. So smart, with his grey head and back, black bandit cheek mask, black wings and warm yellow underparts; not a feather out of place. My first wheatear of the year, with a flash of his white rump, flits out of sight over the edge of Cley’s shingle bank, leaving me wondering just how far this bird has travelled, and where he may be by tomorrow.
Cley springs are full of such miracles. Today the green jungle of alexanders plants edging the path to the reed-thatched hides has gained a voice. Hidden sedge warblers are in full song. One, unable to contain this surge of spring energy, flies up to hover, still singing, in full view over the boardwalk.
I got to Cley early today and, even before I saw them, I could hear the strange, wild music of lapwings in display: tumbling like crazy aerial acrobats, their power dives, stoops and climbs would put any human air-show to shame. It’s one of my favourite spring spectacles and I haven’t even reached the hides! Overhead a whimbrel calls, then a swallow skims the still winter-brown reeds. High above me are more swallows, and with them sand martins. As I walk towards the hides I can hear the ‘klute’ calls of avocets, the noisy peeps of oystercatchers and the whistles of redshanks. It’s going to be a good morning.
The view from the reed-thatched hides is over shallow freshwater pools fringed by still winter-brown reeds. Dunlin are busy feeding at the water’s edge, probing the mud, constantly moving, running, making short flights, wheeling in small, tight groups only to land again and feed with an urgency driven by the lengthening days. Spring is calling these birds north, and in a few days they will have left these pools on journeys I can scarcely imagine. Where will they be in a week’s time? Some will head up our east coast, perhaps flying day and night to the still snow-covered tundras of Iceland. Some will stop there and breed, others continue to the east coast of Greenland where Arctic foxes and powerful-winged gyrfalcons are new dangers they must face.
There are challenges even today. Suddenly every bird that was feeding stops – it’s as if just for a moment someone hit the pause button – then bedlam, and every bird is in flight. Waders are wheeling, lapwings rocketing skywards and birds I hadn’t even noticed: teal from hidden shallows in the reeds, a snipe zig-zagging skywards and, dwarfing the dunlin, with long beaks and white wing bars, eight black-tailed godwits join the mêlée. One of Cley’s breeding marsh harriers, a chocolate brown female with creamy crown and just a hint of cream on the leading edge of strong broad wings is powering low over the water. She follows the edge of the reeds. This is no gentle soaring on shallow ‘V’ shaped wings – everything about this bird says focus and intent and then, in just a moment, as quickly as she appeared, she’s gone – and the dunlin and their migratory relatives are back to the serious business of feeding. Each returning group lands as ‘birds of a feather’. Birds that were wheeling overhead in aerial chaos now sort themselves into tight, single-species flocks, dunlin, teal, god-wit and lapwing each finding their own perfect niche. Several scaly-backed ruff have joined this spring feeding frenzy. If the weather stays bright and clear they may cross the North Sea this evening on a single flight taking them to Denmark or Norway. Some will go further, perhaps to Russia, following, for at least part of their journey, not footsteps, but wing-beats, of birds like the thousands of Brent geese that left these marshlands at Cley in late February and early March.
But the spring morning is too perfect for spending long inside a hide, however impressive the spectacle. Sunshine and a southerly breeze make a walk down Cley’s East Bank a delight. I’m lucky, as this is a regular walk for me, but in the last few months winter has been slow to release her grip and I have become used to fighting my way into the teeth of a northerly gale and dodging showers. Today, though, spring is finally here. Its voice is a skylark lost in a clear blue sky over the saltings of Arnold’s Marsh, while below it, and much easier to spot, several redshanks are in noisy display flights. Their wings flick in shallow, rapid beats. Sometimes they hover, proclaiming their rights to samphire and sea purslane estates where they hope a powerful voice and exuberant song-flight will prove irresistible to a female. By the time these marshes turn purple with sea lavender with luck their fluff-ball chicks with absurdly long legs will be picking tiny insects from creek edges and salt marsh pools.
Today Arnold’s Marsh is noisy with sandwich terns. With ‘kirrick, kirrick’ calls and white wings that have borne them from the rich shallow waters of the West African coast, today they are settling back in for another busy breeding season. Males fly in off the sea. I only know these are males as each one bears a gift. A gift in glittering silver, a sand eel to present with much nodding and bowing and sky-pointing of beaks to the females lined up and waiting on the shingle edge of these saline lagoons. They won’t stay here to breed but will move just a few kilometres west to the tip of Blakeney Point where they will be joined by several thousand others, making the largest breeding colony in Britain. Today, though, they are very much at home here at Cley. Are they pleased to be back? I like to think so.
David North, 2016
March Dust and M
ay Sun, both of which imply a fine dry spring, are said to be particularly good omens for the husbandman. An adage says, ‘A peck of March dust is worth a king’s ransom.’ We have confirmed, by many years’ experience, the truth of the proverb which commends a dry spring, as leading to the most productive summer.
Thomas Furly Forster, The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, published 1827
At the southwesterly tip of Britain, amongst the low hills of Bodmin Moor, the river gathers in a furzey marsh. The waters move beneath the A30, pass through a drowned valley and muscle into miles of moorland fields. Further on, the water cuts through granite and bounces into pools cold enough for spawning salmon and sea trout.
The river sparkles past human dwellings: past drives, parked cars and gardens with swings and climbing frames where children play. The banks are knuckled with the roots of ash trees that otters use as covert passageways to hide from prying eyes. The fishy scent marks of their spraint linger on almost every prominent rock and could give them away to those who wish to pay attention. People who live beside the water might be in the know about their otter neighbours, but they could just as easily mistake the otter’s comings and goings, and its characteristic whistle, for courting dippers or the chinking voices of nesting wrens.
The sprightly Fowey tumbles over rocks and through woodland, it races under bridges throwing moist spray that mists uncurling ferns on the banks. To save energy, otters come out of the water here and nose through the rich undergrowth where it is dry. Beneath the bridges aromatic masses of moss and fine, sandy silt build up. Here, the perfect wet surface captures the otters’ movements in svelte trails, tracing evidence of their secret nightly commute.