Sunshine | Open Field

After reflecting on the language of winter, I started to look at what happened in my lockdown nature diary as spring began.

9/2/2021
Snowdrops stretching down the bank of the stream & into the water. Freezing cold

20/2/2021
Yesterday – daffodils in the park – first of 2021
Snowdrops and crocuses in the mud

27/2/2021
Purple crocuses in a spread under the trees
Daffodils across the car park
Lunch outside in the warm sun

2/3/2021
Muntjac prints. Roe prints, which we follow as they follow the path by the stream Muntjacs seen through the undergrowth round, brown bristly and cautious. Stops and looks before running…
Hawthorn leaves cracking open the cold air Magnolia buds – for the iguanadons! Hawthorn blossom A horse chestnut has gone early, the green looking alert among all the saggy winter browns

14/3/2021
Robins visible through skeins of twigs. Starlings in a flock overhead
Lime leaves just breaking through, the green wet – bright & intense
Burst of song suddenly impinging on my mind….
Bluebell leaves in the wood Green swathes of moss & the grey of lichens among the undergrowth & the dull brown leaf letter
Sense of the high trees

29/3/2021
Brimstones waking up from winter floating element in the air against the sun, light reflecting from tips of leaves
Bee fly weird and enigmatic on the wall, fuzzy
Buff-tailed bees.
Listening to songs – great tit, blackbird. Sound of the magpie all polished up raiding next door’s birdseed….
Violets and forget me nots outside…. & still there are full trees of blossoms, daffodils in the copses & under the tree on Abingdon Road in full flower. The tree in bloom a perfect image of cherry blossom
Magnolia The ants outside The smell of mint Cut grass
Things I am not noticing

My winter language in that lockdown nature diary dwells less on the grey and dull, and more on the bright and cold.

11/1/2021
Geese by the river
Gleam of wet grass
Remembering frost on spiders’ webs

16/1/2021
Magpie on the peak of the roof against the blue sky…
Steam curling up from the fence in the sun

Yet my memory of that winter is full of days like this one on which I’m typing – sky of dark clouds, rain barely bothering to fall, cold breeze. Those are days where the weather is like the taste of a food so bland your appetite vanishes. There’s no spark, no drive to see, do or be.

And yet, since they seem to make up the majority of winter days, life still infuses them. For every day on which I made no reference to the weather, there are still creatures that stirred me to record them, to capture them alive, however briefly, in pen.

18/1/2021
Jackdaw flocks overhead, calls like pebbles hitting roofs. Settling in the tall bare trees behind houses.
Wren calling from knot of ivy round the fence

11/2/2021
Heron flying overhead, great square wings, yellow beak pulled back but set against the air
Red kites & blue tits

Maybe I remember it wrong – perhaps there were more days of icy sun or of turbulent rain. I’d rather have some wildness in the weather than the slog through days that never really seem to begin.

8/2/2021
White light through windows – snow. Just a crusting, colours showing through

9/2/2021
Frost on the cars Bright sun, water in the fields Yellow & green
Strange yearning to walk on crunchy frozen mud, cold wind on the cheeks, warm in winter clothes
Magpie in the trees opposite colours very clear
Going for a walk in the scrub land. Wading through flood water, catching in brambles…. Snowdrops stretching down the bank of the stream and into the water. Freezing cold…
Out on the basketball court, snow falling like hard pellets