April
Its reasuring, I think, that all these regulars, the familiar at the right time of year, turn up, are there when expected, come back, with all of the worries of climate change and how it may be messing with the seasons.Despite all that we continue to do, no longer blindly, we know what we are doing, nature and her seasons are still in tune with the spinning world and its position to the sun.
After the dazzlingly bright start to the month there followed a dismal day, dull, cold, grey, and then another beauty followed that, and then, a gale arrived, a southerly, accompanied by driving rain, so, an unsettled start to April.
On the morning after the grey day, I was eyeing up the sunlit snows and morning cloud around our nearest peak across the sea, when I heard those most wild of voices again, whooper swans, they sounded high up, far away, I looked up into the morning blue to find them. But they came as though from that peak and its white snow, flying towards me rather than above me, lower than I had thought. Their voices mingled with those of both a singing skylark and with the churruping calls of skylarks on the move, and these few clear sounds on this bright sunny April morning were clear voices of the spring. The line of twenty six swans appeared to pulsate, as their beating wings caught and lost the light of the sun on their upper and under sides. Iceland bound, but over which high lands will they fly, I wondered, would they fly up the coast, between the isles and the shore before leaving this land and crossing the sea? And how do they find that land of ice in that vast ocean, such wonders. That evening, through cool drizzly rain and darkness, more whooper swans passed over head, I was even more wonder filled. Over the next few days I saw more wild swans. A party of ten flying up from a large fresh water loch, pure northern white against the bare grey oak wood as they cirled to gain hight. On an upland lochan, its waters swollen by the heavy rains, four together, again, that arctic white. And a lone swan on the same loch that the ten flew from, a single swan is a lonely swan, what has happened to its mate? Why did it not go with the rest?
On my way down off the hill, into those grey oaks, I thought again about what it is about being among trees after being out in the open, and yes there is that feeling of safety and shelter, but, more than that, it is that trees are beautiful, and that beauty is hightened when suddenly you wander into and are among all of that beauty that there is in a wood, after the emptiness of the open hill. An emtiness that has its very own beauty, ofcourse. There is the quiet of the open hill, then there is the quiet stillness that eminates from trees. Some stand as natures most magnificent scultures, only living, growing, statuesque, shaped and scultored by the spaces into which they have the space to grow, by the light they grow into those spaces to reach, by storm winds, by age. I thought I had favourite trees, birch – delicate many twigged trees that display small leaves of brightess spring green or autumn yellow-gold, or in winter each twig end holds a drop of sunlit water and the whole tree becomes a tree of glittering diamonds. Larch – shapely, graceful, fine, the loveliest and often earliest of greens in the spring, thier needles turning yellow in the fall. Beech – magnificent, stunning splendid take your breath way beech. Rowans – ash of the mountains, for where you find them, often singly in special secret places among the hills. But all trees are beautiful, at all times of the year. I have though grown to admire oaks the more time that I have spent among them in the south facing oak wood that I come down into after a day on the open hill. And have grown to love oak woodland, woods, that wood, very much. It is a rench to have to leave it, especially on a bright spring day. And on a bright day, an April day, before the trees come into leaf, that bright April light shines onto one side of every tree trunk, bough, branch, twig and stem of very tree, and they all shine with it and all of them cast tree shadows onto the wood floor, shadows lost in the full dark shade of summer, and shadows that are not as strong in the low light of winter, shadows more intrcate and beautiful than any other.
These past couple of weeks, again, as in past years at this time, there have been sparrowhawks in about the gardens. A young male and a young female. Are they the same birds that were through the gadens in the autumn, I would guess so. The same questions, where did they go for the winter? Following the small birds south? I flushed the smaller male, still in his juvanile plumes, from the ground at the bottom of the garden, it dragged its catch, partly plucked, through the wire fence and flew away with it. On another occasion he crashed into a thick bush from which exploded several hiding sparrows, he chased out more that had tried to stay safe and not take flight. Across the lawn into another thick shrub after hanging just above it looking down into it before plunging down into its thick foliage, more thashing about and out with a catch. Several more times I saw the small male at the garden birds. It was easy to know when he was about, for all the garden birds either scattered and flew into higher trees or dense cover, or, if I missed that, they called in alarm at the hawks hidden presence. He had become so regularly about that I was bound at some point to get a good look at him, and did. He floated low (another hunting technique, ready to excellerate if he flushed prey) across the lawn again and landed on its edge, right in the open. For several minutes, ten, fifteen, several birds, chaffinches mainly, perched above him, 'pinking' at him. Blue tits too scolded him. But, after a while the birds quietened down and a few returned to feed on nut bags not more than five feet from the hawk. Also, across the lawn at the bird table more bird retuned to feed, siskins mainly. Things were beginning to look good for the waiting male, when all of a sudden all the birds scattered again, he hadn't moved, it was the young female, floating across the bottom of the garden, looking for an oppotunity. Things settled down again, and it was at the siskins that the hawk eventually flew, though it appeared half heartedly. He alighted on a low branch about three feet from and below the bird table and hanging feeders, though not now out in the open he was not that well hidden. I was now eye to eye with him through my telescope and could see his every subtle move. Once again, the shouting small birds, up in the higher trees, and the quiet hidden ones, came down and out and came closer to the feeders, becoming silent, closr to the hawk. All the time the hawk was watching. His appearence and posture changed with the comings and goings and nearness of his prey, from hunched and relaxed, feathers puffed up against the chill, closing his eyes, almost sleepy, at rest, slow breaths, to sleeked back plumes and tight attention, black dilated pupil enlarged in its daffodil yellow ring, fast breathed, leaning forward, glaring, staring, needle sharp talons tightly gripped, ready to go, waiting for that right moment.If it passed, the hawk relaxed again. And so it went on until several siskins had actually come down to feed, with the predator right there just three feet away, only he was facing the wrong way, and that movement to turn around would put the siskins up, and that extra second or two to do so before being able to explode at them would mean the difference between success and failure. Time passed. I could no longer watch him every moment, but returned to see him still there as often as I could, leaving him not more than a few seconds at a time. Then, a bang down stairs, I looked out from the upstairs window again from where I had been watching, the branch on which the sparrowhawk had been perched swayed from his push off, he had gone. I knew what had happened, he'd hit the downstairs window. I went down and opened the door, there he was on the path below the kitchen window, looking rather less the impressive hunter. Something made me say 'you ok mate?' I stepped outside and he flew unsteadily into a nearby bush. I left him a while then slowly appraoched, and was glad to see him ok as he flew away looking none the worse for his collision. I looked from where he had been perched at the kitchen window, and it was the birds in the rowan on the opposite side of the lawn that he had flown at, only he hadn't, he flown at the reflection of them in the glass.
Mid April, and a warm sunny settled spell, so good to feel that warmth after our cold winter. With a southerly wind came summer migrants, willow warblers on the 11th , they were everywhere the next day, cuckoo on the 13th, tree pipit on the 15th and swallow on the 17th, which was a lovely warm day. During it, I heard a call from up in the blue, and way way up they were, sea eagles, above the village. Well, one was for sure, there were five big birds, but all sea eagles, I don't know, they were so high up, so tiny, I'd have never have seen them if I had not heard that yelping cry. By the time I had got the binoculars they had split up and were lost in that vast blue space way up there. (Later in the month I saw five immature and sub-adult sea eagles together a few miles from the village, so maybe those high five where the same five eagles. The settled spell continued but it became cooler with the wind from the north, which held back summer birds. Snipe began drumming above the meadow. More peacock butterflies and bumble bees were seen, along with small tortoieshells, and I can't remember seeing quite so many moths at the window, what were they all? I managed to get a look at two, an early grey and a hebrew character.
The single whooper swan remained and remained a single swan, maybe it was unwell, but its aloneness and its slow graceful swan moves seemed to underline a sadness that drifted across the water and through and into the heart of the wood, making quieter still the quiet, as if all the wood could feel the swans sorrow.
Meadow pipts had been trickling through in small numbers all month, but I wasn't seeing the big flocks until the middle of the month. Swallows were daily and into the old steading from the third week of the month, when the single black throated diver became two. Redwing, leaving.
It became very cold again with a strong northerly wind blowing in wintry showers, spring was silenced for a few days. I went up onto the hills then, walking into the face numbing wind, glad of a sheltered burn gully with its few rowan and hazel, out of the wind the April sun was very warm, celendines and primroses brightened the moss green stream bank.. A shadow moving swiftly across the ground caught my eye, low and close over head, another sea eagle, huge, a young bird, two, three years old, it turned into the wind and powered away, effortless.
Walking back, I had snow showers at my back, engulfing the big hill behind me, and whilst the snow fell it would have been the depths of winter if it were not for the brightness of the april light and the heat in the after showers sun, the showers were inbetweened by blue sky. And then I had an encounter that made me realise a thing or two about the winter we've just had, about it and what it has been like during it on the open hills, and it made me realise also that the spring had not yet come to them.
There was a young deer, lying down at the base of a low crag, out of the wind, across the other side of a narrow riverlet from me, not more than forty feet away. It tried to stand up, but couldn't. It tried again, and again couldn't. I thought that it must have a broken leg or something, when it tried again and managed to stand. It tried to run away, managing a few tottering steps before collapsing again and lying still. Again it struggled to its feet. It was on a slope, and when it moved again that slope took the deer down towards a small stream, it didn't have the strength to go up hill. It fell at the stream, landing aukwardly across it, it would never get up from there. I went down and lifted the deer, and stood with it. It had little strength. If I were to let it go there it would not get up the slope away from the stream, so I walked it up the slope away from the water to close to the top of the rise, where the deer dropped to the ground and made no effort to get away from me. I left it there. It was not in an as sheltered spot as where I had first found it, but it was still out of that cold wind, and it would get the suns warmth when it shined. I wished that I had not come across it. I wished, later, that I had walked it back to where I had found it, as it was a more sheltered place, for if I had not disturbed it I know that it would not have left that spot, but died there. The deer, ten months old, a female, was starving. This was what the long cold winter had done to deer on the hill. I had seen and heard about it, had seen photographs of dead and dying deer, of hinds and thier calves lying dead together, but nothing had prepared me for coming face to face with it. There was nothing I could have done. If only the calf had been a few hundred feet lower it may have found new spring growth in time. But it had become too weak to move any distance, and the spring had not come in time. There was no new grass for deer on the hill, not yet, and the weakest would not survive. The late winter cold snap with its northerlies and snow was a cruel seal on this deers fate, and the same would befall others. It is nature, and nature is cruel. Although we have had a hand in this. For over decades and centuries our livestock, sheep, have grazed the hills to there present near barren state. Also, wolfless hills means too many deer, and those too many deer have not enough to eat thanks to their numbers and to those sheep. We need to get the hills back to health, which will be of benefit to all.
After strong winds, the following quiet and stillness is profound, and welcome.
I was told that the swan had died. What was its story, how old was it, was it just old? How many iceland summers had it had. How many times had it flown here and back. What did it feel when the ten other whoopers that had been on the loch flew away, leaving it. Many will say that a bird, a swan, doesn't 'feel' anything, I can't and won't believe that. It will have felt something as a swan does, not as we do, but as a swan does, and we can never know or say how that feels, just as we can never know so much that we claim we do but dont.
During the third week of the month, busy parent black birds were back and forth with food for thier brood somewhere in the white blossomed blackthorn thicket. The first fledglings of the year, siskins...so soon, it all happens so fast. Again, familiar spring happenings, whilst some birds have young already, others on the move still. A flight of fourteen whimbrel came into a greening field, surely fourteen of the forty or so that came to that very field last May. One day, in the space of just a few minutes, more flocks of pipits in a field, two or three wheatear along the stone wall around its edge, several swallows low over it, heading north, and over head calling, a tight V of ten redshank, also north bound, all going north, migrating birds, all with still some way to go, while others are there, back. Green veined white and speckled wood buttterflies that week too, along with more peacocks and a few small tortoieshell.
The sparrowhawks that for these past few weeks have had the freedom of the skies to gain that advantage on thier prey, are now harried and chased by several angry swallows whose numbers grow daily. House martins will join them, they were in on the 23rd along with whitethroat. Male redstart back at home in his wonderful wood of oak, wood warbler there also a week later just before the month was out.
Those last few days of April were as much of the month had been, unsettled, and then on the 30th, today, this afternoon, grey skies and heavy showers slowly made way for a deep blue that came in from the north west, a May blue sky with big white billowy clouds, the light so crisp, fresh, clean, clear, sharp. In the evening, this evening, a grasshopper warbler sang its summer song, that long steady realing in of a fishermans real, down on the still meadow flooded in late sunshine, and in the garden rowan, whose buds are bursting pale lime green, the male blackbird sang his beautiful melody, all else was quiet, as though spring was taking a brief breather, until first light tomorrow, the first day of May, that most glorious month of the year, when there is nowhere else in the world where I would rather be than here in the northwest among its woods and hills. All that I will want is some time to wander through them, to wonder at them.
