Blogger: Aggie Rothon, Communications Officer
There's always something going on at home. Always someone driving up the long track and parking up in the courtyard to drop something off, pick something up, walk a dog or return home. We hang out of car windows and tractor cabs to shout hello's to one another or stop to banter about recent goings on. Is your car fixed now? What do you think of this rain? The red deer were out in the field again yesterday. Did you see the barn owl flying at dusk? There is always some new item appearing too. Paving slabs where I usually park, a delivery of gravel left in the driveway, a bike, a collection of old tools, that compost bin I thought you might want. The appearance of these new objects describes our lives to each other as much as we do in our conversations. Like that old cliché, actions speak louder than words.
If this old adage holds true, then Spring has definitely started to tell its story over the past week or so. It was just after that week of winds that we had, and in clearing the plant pot wreckage from the garden, that I first noticed a yellow bead of colour bursting through the bare February soil. A winter aconite curling up to the surface to unfurl its frilly collar of leaves. Then the delicate white threads of crocus stems and the jabbing leaves of daffodils appearing sword like from their bulbs. You wouldn't have thought, would you, from the purple-grey bruising of the sky and the numbness of your finger tips if you venture out without gloves on, that warmer weather is on the way. But the blue tits have started fussing around the nestbox now. Peeping in, sitting astride it, flitting back and forth like a dog prepares its bed, padding around it in circles.
And it doesn't seem probable to most, what with all that over-the-fence chatting that I would actually describe myself as a quiet girl. In truth, I'm not one for an excess of words and like to have time to escape to the gentle rhythms of home. Maybe that's why I feel such an affinity for this time of year. The paisley patterns of a red admiral in flight or the neon of an orange tip are yet to be seen. The fluorescent blue of a ceanothus in bloom, the richness of a dawn chorus are all for the coming months. The season isn't immediate yet, instead it's quietly showing flashes of brilliant green newness. Nature is gently creaking out of the slowness of winter with few words, but some magnificent actions.
Join the RSPB in the east facebook page and let us in on your garden's springtime secrets www.facebook.com/rspbintheeast
Article seen in Eastern Daily Press on 26th February 2011. Credit Ray Kennedy (rspb-images.com)