Late Feb to end of March.
I can’t remember when in was, the end of February or the beginning of March, but winter had laid upon the mountains its deepest snow of the year, of the winter, and after it had fallen they were bathed in bright spring sunshine, and my breath was taken away, stunningly beautiful snowy hills and mountains. Hills, when covered in snow, become mountains, and hill walkers can play at being winter mountaineers on little hills, whereas the real thing, winter walking on real mountains is a very serious proposition. But I was content to gaze at them, big and small, and recall my own early spring forays into and onto snowy heights. (those little ones anyway)
Funny that, as the spring advances, that the winter often chooses then to unleash its harshest weather, as if not wanting to give up its hold and to put up a last fight before relenting inevitably. Even towards the end of March it turned cold with a biting northerly and frequent showers of hail and sleet with a dusting of fresh snow on the hills. Earlier in the month, blustery, squally showers were blown through on a north westerly which increased considerably as they came by. They were isolated, and brief, but savage. As one approached after dark one night, the lights suddenly went out, I had just a moment to think that surely we hadn’t run out of electricity all ready, and then there was an almighty explosion, just one big loud, very loud bang, not a rumble of thunder, but a great powerful boom, which was followed by the wind roaring all of a sudden and the hail lashing on the windows outside. But it soon passed, and all went quite again. But spring it is, spring it is.
Those earliest and cheeriest of spring migrants, skylarks, continue to move through in small loose flocks, followed by larger numbers and now by flocks of bouncing pipits, also on their way back to the hills. And on the hills, there are now a few skylark on territory, and one or two pipits to. And there are a few golden plover back on high ground again, performing that graceful, slow circling display on wings that aren’t really beating to keep the bird air born, but beating in a slow exaggerated way as the bird glides above its chosen piece of high plateaux, uttering that forlorn plaintive whistling ‘who-heee-oo…who-heee-oo…who-heee-oo’
I spent my first proper day back on the hills on a surprisingly warm mid March day. I was expecting the cool easterly to really bite on the tops, but it was as warm high up as down below. In every mountain pool, dozens and dozens of frogs, all with their heads above the water, croaking in the still, quiet mountain air. Amorous males and mating couples, how blissful must that warmth be to them after being frozen on the mountain all winter. I wondered as I descended through a small line of sunny south facing crags if I’d see the first of the mountain flowers to bloom, or was I too early…no, there they were, fresh and brand new, the perfect soft spring petals of purple saxifrage among the hard grey places of the hill, beautiful, and always nice to find and see, high mountain rockeries.
Down below on the grassy moor lay a long shallow lochan, and on it were six pure winter white whooper swans, winter birds lingering in the spring hills.
Groups of deer, hinds with last years calves, lay on the sunny side of the hill also enjoying that sun, their hardest time is almost at an end. Descending further and cresting a knoll, there below perched at the edge of a drop not far away, an immense sea eagle, what a sight! It opened its great spread of plumes and lifted easily into the blue on the breeze, it banked and went away without a single beat of those huge wings. Above the sunny woods, so full of light today, mewing buzzards with the sun on their backs, rising and falling in display. And in the woods, singing birds, a few, our residents that did not leave for the winter but stayed and saw it through, great tits, coal tits, robins, wrens, treecreepers, chaffinches, and mistle thrushes. And, the first butterlies of the year, peacocks, having made it through the cold months in some crevice in a tree or rocky place.
A lovely day that was.
On another day, things could not have been more different, pouring with rain the wood was silent and everything, even the rocks, appeared to be absolutely soaking wet, and you wonder how anything could live and survive there after weeks and months of cold wet winter weather. But all it takes is for the sun to shine at this time of the year, and that life appears, bright and beautiful, and with each sunny day more life will return to the woods and hills.
I have seen one or two peacock butterflies and it won’t be too long, a few weeks, before we see the first speckled woods. Big lumbering heavy with slumber bumbling bumble bees, so good to hear their buzzing in the spring, seek out spring blooms, and more and more of those appear everyday, bright and yellow as the sun celendines, softer pastel yellow primroses, dazzling gorse. A large willow, full of spring catkins was all a buzz with bees, providing them with pollen and nectar on what was quite a cold sunless afternoon.
Stags are now dropping their antlers, I found a nice seven pointer close to the village. They are a fine thing to find and hold in your hand, big and heavy, impressive. I keep the very finest ones. I often think, when holding and looking at an antler, about the blood that flowed into the antlers of the ancestors of today’s deer, and of how it would have beaten through their hearts as they ran in the great wild wood and above it on the open hill, away from chasing wolves, long but not so long ago.
A lone and extremely handsome black throated diver preened its perfect plumes on a large fresh water loch, waiting for a mate. They won’t breed here, but will court and pair up before heading off to breeding lochs elsewhere.
If there was any doubts about it being spring, then a singing chiff-chaff on the 21st of March soon layed them to rest, and the calls of north bound whooper swans flying through a sunlit drizzly shower one mild late March morning said the same thing. And so many other birds are singing it as well. I opened the door in the early evening as dusk descended, and my ears were set about by a nearby singing blackbird, what a voice! He brought a smile to my face. And above the darkening meadow, snipe drummed. How did that ever come about, for the two outer most tail feathers to have become twisted so that as the bird dives they throb and produce that amazing rapid thrumming sound.
There will be so much going on that we don’t see, birds building nests and sitting hidden on them, hatching butterfly and moth larva, emerging dragonflies, flowers coming into bloom, trees into leaf, pine martins, foxes and otters with young in dens, (holts in the case of otters, and the timing of when their young are born is not so clear cut, although it is usually sometime in the spring or summer) and so on, I’m always thinking I miss so much during the spring, but then if you put in the time and are quiet, and watch, then nature will reveal her secrets.
These next few weeks are the brightest of the year. Even in the heart of woodland before the buds burst and shade begins to cut out the light it is so bright during April, perhaps, along with May, the best months for being in the woods, when woodland flowers have the sun on them for a few weeks before the canopy closes over and the wood floor is dry and bracken free, yes, the oak woods of the north west are a joy in spring.
Any time now and over the coming weeks our summer migrants will come back in, the chiff-chaff is here already, and I would not be surprised to see to know that sand martin and wheatear were too. To think…swallows in a week or two!
Spring, a wonderful, thrilling time of year.
A brief update…more whooper swans north, along with skeins of grey geese and redwing. A singing blackcap on April 3rd. Many more brilliant yellow celendines and soft primroses have been joined by white wood anemone. And buds are appearing in the woods, everywhere, millions of points of brilliant brightest spring green, ready to burst open and spread and grow.
