March.
It was mid March before the long cold sunny spell came to an end and the wind went finally round from the northerlies and the easterlies that had been blowing, so very lightly, for many weeks, to the more familiar milder wet westerlies. Its easy to forget these long dry settled periods of weather that we do get here after just a few days rain. But what a difference it makes to our lives, all those dry days, living in this wet part of the world.
There are herons everywhere where they aren't usually,except that is at this time of year, up from the shore after those hundreds of frogs in every body of water. A feast.
A blue tit and a bullfinch, together on a blackthorn bough. One of pastel blues and yellow, bright, lively, plucky, bold for such a little fellow, bouncy, jerky, looking for insects in among the lichens. The other, smart, velvety smooth, black and dark pink with that flash of brightest white, stocky, strong and yet so very shy and so very quiet, picking off the new spring buds daintily from the ends of twigs. Two very different birds in everyway, side by side for that moment that they caught my eye.
One, two, three, four, five, six wrens, into the sparrows nest box at dusk. Six isn't many compared to the forty and more that have been known, but six little wrens in that box above our window is a nice thought, knowing they're there altogether to keep warm through the cold nights. Suprisingly late it is that they leave it before going in, nearly dark, so that they aren't seen. How do they all know where each other go? One is soon in after the other, and so on, as if all arriving at once or there abouts. I suppose as they forage about the place they come to know the best places for spending the night. Do they all get along I wonder, especially the territorial males? I guess this must mean that the sparrows, that have been already taking in nest material, aren't using the box as a roost, as I don't suppose they would share it with a bunch a wrens. I have always been curious about where birds spend the night hours, especially smaller birds. They must have to get it right, as if not it could mean that they won't see a new day, snatched in the night by that maruading pine martin, or caught in a freezing draft, or blown out in a storm that blows in after dark.
I was through and above the south facing oak wood yesterday. It was a bright day, quite warm with a light southerly wind. A few birds were singing, resident birds that will have stayed in the wood all winter, tits, wrens, chaffinches, treecreeper. (If I had to be a woodland bird, I think I'd like to be a treecreeper, how intimately they must know the trees) Blue and great tits scolded me, they will not have seen the likes of me for months I doubt. That lovely time of the year again to be in a wood, March, April, so full of light. As much as I am a lover of the open hill, after being out of the wood it is always nice to come back down into it again, there is a sense of relief, of safety, of finding shelter and being sheltered, being in and under cover, that perhaps goes back a long long time to when we were closer to nature.
Two woodcock flushed from open brackeny places close to the wood edge, a woodland bird for sure, but with the bill and legs of a wader, though it doesn't really wade any more, but walks about the wetter parts of the wood and its surrounds after dark. A night bird, by day hiding in or close to woods. And how well it hides, for its plumes are coloured with the same pallet as the wood floor, and pattened the same way too so that you wont see them until you just about stand on them. Quiet, secretive singular birds, alone in thier hiding places, staying as still as dead wood until dusk stirs them into slow skulking creeping motion, everything about the woodcock is careful, secretive, so as not to be seen. I often think too about birds and other night creatures during the daylight hours, they too have to hide well, that sleepy owl will get no peace if found by a pack of mobbing chaffinches, for example.
It is only when you finally stop, make yourself stop, as I did, sitting against a mossy oak, that the tension and stress that your body endures and excepts and puts up with day in day out ebbs away to be replaced with an overwelming tiredness, restfulness and peace. I guess it is the same for those who finally get away on holiday, traveling (and enduring yet more stress along the way) hundreds, thousands of miles to at last lay back on that sun lounger, a deep sigh of relief, knowing that you've nothing to do or worry about for a week or two before being thrown back into the fray. I'm content to walk into a wood and find a quiet place among the trees in the sun for a while, that will always do it for me. After some shut eye, you open them and see only trees, only the wood. Eyes shut and asleep or eyes wide open and awake, the same peace, the same quiet, the same restful state. There is nothing and nowhere that can provide us with these needs better than spending time with nature, in a wood, on a hill, beside the sea. And it need not be a wild remote place. You can find nature and peace, and yes wildness too, not so far away, inbetween the tarmac and concrete that we have covered so much of the land with are still little wild places, right there on your doorstep, forgotten about, unfrequented places. And even in the heart of cities, where ever there is greenery, you'll find natures peace there too. All of this, islanded, surrounded, would, given half a chance, grow over, grow through, join up and cover it all up, all that we have done, given half a chance, and given time. I found that I was still in the wood for much of the rest of the day, even after leaving it.
From mid month onwards it remained mild, with some wet days and some strong southerly gales. Now the lowland skylarks are up in the sky, singing thier long songs, facing into fresh westerly winds and rain, singing for several minutes ( up to half an hour has been known) and having to stay airbourn above thier territory must take a great deal of energy. All below and round about them, the land is changing colour and the air in which they sing is warming up ready for the that great arrival of millions of summer birds.
Speaking of bird using up thier energy, the busy caotic sqwabbling siskins on the bird feeders must burn it off as soon as they aquire it. They are absent for much of the winter, either staying in the sitka pine plantations if the cone crop is a good one, feeding also on alder and birch, or they go south, though probably not leaving the country. Then all of a sudden there are dozens of them at the nut baskets this month, all fighting for a place, flicking out thier wings and tails and threat postering with open bills, constantly changing places, off the feeders then on again, a green and yellow frenzy. They appear stroppy ill tempered little birds. Close up, and close to them you can get, for they're not shy, they are exquisitely plumed.
Although I have heard that both peacock and red admirals have been seen, it has been too cold and since too dull and wet for butterflies, and not yet the first bumble bees, but as soon as that sun comes out again for a while they'll be there. I saw today my first butterfly, the 27th, a peacock, flying along a blustery shore inbetween showers, a day whose sky was slate grey and pearl and brilliant white and blue, whilst tonight white clouds drift by a bright three quarter moon.
At the end of the month, just like last year, the winter turned vengeful, at its worst perhaps, with biting northerlies and sleat and snow, but it was short lived, the beginning of beautifully bright April was beauitfully bright with warm spring sunshine shinning on all that winter beauty. Whilst some skylarks and pipits are on territory and in song others are still moving through, the first spring primroses and lesser celendines, at last, but still no bumble bees yet, and no summer migrants yet.
Was that the same single black throated diver waiting for its mate on that fresh water loch as the one seen last year at this time on the same loch? The same birds at the same time of year, spring birds on the move, spring birds in bright dress awaiting mates, spring songs being sung in the same places by the same birds. Bright gorse yellow yellowhammers singing on bright yellow gorse. Two greenshank rise from the bank of a burn close to where it enters the sea, a pair, did they spend the winter together or apart, together again now, four whooper swans on a glittering upland lochan, on route, did they stop off there in the autumn, and last spring too, have they been stopping off there for years and years? Birds back, birds on there way through, birds that have been here before.
I am in the spring woods or on the hill when I am not, before going again, and after I have been, because I've been before, to those same woods, to those same hills, at the same times of year, seeing the familiar in the familiar, yet it is never the same and always new, each spring day, each spring, and because of being there before I can't not be there again, it becomes a longing, to go back, to be there again.
April, in the spring rush, don't rush me by.
