As I walked out, one dog walk morning….
A black crow sits motionless on the tarmac, it’s form molten, squat, like a brooding hen. The air is tense with promised rain; the damp of the last shower barely enough to bead in the grass. Still air lays heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and stiff dried grass. Sprung like a trap, a painted lady butterfly lunges after another, a tortoiseshell, bright and sharp ahead of its assailant. Momentary pursuit complete, it settles for the briefest of respite before wings clattering it’s off again.
Solstice sunlight glazed on a rabbit kit’s ear, fine tracery of veins finding echoes all around; in the elm leaves glowing with summer light, the arching branches pulsing in the warm breeze and the bindweed reaching up through the Keck and brambles along the lane. Above a squirrel, sharp movements shaking the last of the flower buds from the blackthorn, where sloes are now hanging like tiny olives to swell to autumn plunder.
The fragrant honeysuckle and bryony lay tangled and twined in a lovers embrace, tenderly quest across the hedge their passion barely spent.
Like spinning plates the elderflowers shine, creamy effervescence facing the sky amid the vibrant green and wren song. Dog roses race, tangled through dead elm and live hawthorn seeking the sunlight, their heart shaped petals cast like forgotten confetti across the lane. Hogweed, bindweed, all white flowers mirroring the summer clouds. The first of the wood butterflies soaks up the rays high in the hazel, and the honeysuckle drips pools of syrup scent, the path awash in the warming light.
The lane is there inside every drip hung from May blossom and hazel, elder and oak. The puffy white clouds of keck and campion scattered across the green canvas pulls light in to the depths. All around, the bird songs drips from every branch, the skylarks providing their backing melody. Among the rows freshly cut silage crows and magpies patrol, their bead-like eyes catching every bug loitering in the shaven grass. Old life gives shelter to new as the hollow ash tree hosts both wrens and blue tits nests; the adults bird’s wake up call rousing the brood for a procession of caterpillars and grubs.
Overhead a pair of starlings shout warnings to each other, directing their ire at a bold crow sat, shoulders hunched against the impending rain, at the end of a stout branch. The crow heaves it’s reluctant self in to the air as I approach, and with a single defeated croak, departs. The starlings resume, beaks loaded with grubs, to feed their noisy offspring. Further on, drips line the mouths of sullen bluebells; scant illumination this dull morning. The birdsong continues: a thrush sings his latest hits, whilst across the field his competitor responds. I write this, cloistered under a dripping hedge amongst the hazel, oak and elm; my guard-box hollow tree taken over by the sudden buzzing wings of a wren nesting in the finest hole drawn out with moss and leaves.
A lone bumblebee patrols the hedgerows beneath chattering birdsong and blackthorn flowers. Flash of pink, a purple glint, the Jay glides across, his acorn search disturbed; a reminder that not all crows are constrained by black and white. Overhead and overheard, Ravens tumble in bound loops. The green tide of spring seems halted, arrested by raw northerlies; the grey hedges persist until a splash of cherry blossom in a darkened corner draws beads of light and holds the eye.
Turned out in to the frost, first winter’s bullocks stop their chewing and riase their broad heads as I pass. Accompanied by their chattering calls, the final flock of winter thrushes drift across the field before taking to the air alarmed for no reason, and moves to fill the budding branches with restless sound. Further down , the whole district’s pigeons give up their dawn grazing in a clattering, clamouring wave of noise as hundreds of wings beat together and away, a dark cloud in the skies blue where the lark sings. Golden light filters through a weak cloud, a thin wash of warmth to push back the last frost…
A narrow lane winds to the sea between tall hedges. Sharp light and sharp bends, the road secondary to the land. Deer abound as darkness falls, more alive, caught in headlights and the corners of the eye. Storm clouds tower above a glowering sun, the golden light draped lazily across a waiting land. Scattered swans grown in fields, as crops amongst the beets and daffodils.
Hidden behind a storm-built bank, the sea growls, reaching hungrily for the strand line. Spume blown ragged from crashing waves, as a chattering flock cascades across the beach.
Storm rattled, the rain thrown with body against the windows. The sun punches through the clouds to bring honeyed light cast across the land as a blanket, then hurriedly picked and packed away as the storm drives another squally shower through. Good weather for today’s geese and swans, laid carelessly across the fields with the rushes and reeds. Broad wings beat at the thrashing air, cautiously aloft, their brief battle seems to outweigh the benefit gleaned amid the tussocks.
The waves rise on the derelict canal, home of water weed and alders, and no longer a hub of wherry-borne trade. The water portal of a restored bridge funnels the wind, a standing wave on still water.
Notes from a trip to Norfolk, mid-February, whilst storm Eunice blew through.
Dial up the colour, the yellowhammer returns. Pure winged sunshine, field canary, sherbet yellow he sits and flits from hedge to hedge, pointing his voice towards spring. Across the fields beneath the woodpecker’s call, a hare sits motionless as a rock pulled up by the plough. Leading on, deer tracks no bigger than a cat’s paw; the badger, old Brock, has passed through too, his prints wide and fat in the soft mud.
Three hares scribe a lazy circle around the home field. Dipping and loping in and out of view. One at a time, out of sight in form or hollow. Sparrowhawk glides menacingly from hedge to grass; pulling up worms or picking bugs. A couple of wingbeats to fence post lookout. The small birds know she’s there, their warnings flutter down the hedgerow. Blown from tree to tree, the squirrels claws clatter across the breeze. And the thrush’s song fires up the dawn.
Down my lane 