The Water Margin

There, I hear it again, the tap, tap, tapping. What is it, I ask myself, as I scan the nearby bank of the pond. The tapping continues and my ears home in on a clump of last year’s hogweed – just dishevelled remains after the snow crushed it like matchsticks. Tap, tap, tap and my eyes focus on a single wasp, its mandibles chomping away at the stem. I would rather have seen a bee getting material for a nest, but the buzz of a wasp is surprisingly comforting after the recent heavy rain and biting wind. I move further round the pond, fish fry are topping on the surface and I catch a fleeting glimpse of our very own Loch Ness Monster - the ghost carp. On the opposite bank I see bubbles on the surface: they must have come from a tench feeding off the bottom of the pond. All the while frogs are calling - since April their croaks have been like cicadas in Crete - just as loud, normal and annoying!

            The serenity is shattered: the fish dive as I here the ominous call of a heron. It lands on its chosen peg on the far side of the pond and then wades in - an expert fisherman. I watch it for 10 minutes before it decides to cast in, its snakelike neck striking the water and then getting a frog. Then, expertly balancing the prize in its bill, it throws it down its neck. I stand up and make my way back home. The heron sees me and flies away, but it’ll be back. The fish begin to top, the frog chorus returns and still – tap, tap, tap.....    

Let's go spy a kite

For years, I’ve looked forward to my sporadic journeys down the M40 for one reason only: kites. As the motorway cuts dramatically through the chalk near Stokenchurch, you can always see large numbers of them swooping overhead. On holidays in France, too, I’ve marvelled at them riding the currents of the gorges. But, despite living a stone's throw from a wood know as Kite’s Nest Plantation, I’ve never seen one at home. Last week I looked out the window, hardly registering the bird of prey, and looked again: ‘That’s a buzzard, I tell myself, no, a goshawk...a peregrine.’ It was none of the usual suspects. The red kite flew out of the sun like a spitfire pilot, its wide wings effortlessly gliding, soaring, turning. It was only when it turned to make for home that the distinct fan tail gave away its true identity. Now I’m waiting to see it again.....

Blithe spirits

I have the babble of a stream on my right which seems to have woken the birds - a jay cackles, a song thrush drops to the ground by a bed of wild garlic and a single golden saxifrage, a raven cronks and blue tits chatter nervously in the hedge. I see some weary snowdrops, silently thankful that winter has loosened its grip, and then turn my attention to the hill ahead.  The taller cousin of Wenlock Edge takes you up towards Bourton Westwood at around 258m. The far off song of skylarks teases me as I climb. I challenge myself not to look at the view until I reach the top.

            North, the last of the snow is retreating on Caer Caradoc, but opposite, the softly folding south Shropshire landscape - Spoonhill, Corve Dale, Aston Hills and the imperious Clee – whispers of spring. Now I see as well as hear the skylarks, their soaring flight and trilling song both noticeable against the cold wind. Is it the words of the poets, or their increasing rarity, or simply their illusiveness? I don’t know, but there’s something magical and ethereal about skylarks which have taken this walk out of the ordinary.

Winter's Tail

As the shafts of light force themselves through the dreary covers of winter a great haze is produced over the Shropshire landscape. The view across the Corve Dale becomes a dappled patchwork of greens: bright, new shooted fields merging into deep hued pine plantations, bounded by the remote wilderness of the Clee. Only the skylark's song is clear as I walk back to Bourton, a crisp endless trill as the bird rises up and into the strong easterly headwind.

            Even now I can’t escape the snow. There are paths still unusable with drifts which the sun has not yet shrunk and everywhere grimy snow-ploughed heaps refuse to yield. Daffodils are struggling to lift their heads after being flattened for so long under the weight of white; grass which should be green and springy is lank and dull.

            Why are the fields so dry after the snow, I ask myself, and then I realise my position - 250 m above sea level. The wind has done its work on the sloping ground and gravity is doing the rest. The rutted tracks and field edges below have streams of water running down them; water which will flow down into the haze until it reaches the Corve. What is usually a tinkling stream is today a torrent.

Afternoon shadows lengthen and I decide to follow the water home, determined to see not the remains of winter but the signs of spring - primroses, celandines. I have never been so happy to see the wearied leaves of a plantain as it pokes out from the deep banks of snow.

Is there a green hill far away?

Humans are not very well adapted to snow. I envy the coots - their great galoshes of feet enable them to skip lightly over the drifts that have swallowed up our road. I, on the other hand am forced to plough on, the snow coming up to my knees.

            The adverts for creme eggs are the only thing to suggest spring is here. Is it here? Where are the daffodils, the daisies, the buttercups, the violets, the primroses, the nesting birds, the frogs, or the sun? Winter’s icy grip has hung on to Easter, with its worst snow falling in March. Snowdrops and crocuses seem to cryogenically frozen in time, and the shoots of hawthorn in the hedgerow or apple blossom in the orchards are nowhere to be found.

            A jay breaks from the wood opposite our house, its grating call echoing off the metre high snowdrifts butressing the hedge. A mixed flock of finches have been disturbed and scatter to the pine plantation. The stream in the verge is still flowing and is visited by a song thrush, but even he can’t stand the easterly wind for long and flies to a more secluded spot. In Bourton churchyard a mighty yew has been split asunder, centuries of growth shattered by the weight of snow. The wind picks up again, the drifts are moved like dunes in a desert, and the snow continues to fall.

March on the Edge

A typically windswept March afternoon on Wenlock Edge. The hedgerow’s a tangled mass of hawthorn and blackthorn. Filigree leaves of varied ferns carpet the area and Jack in the Hedge is poised to spring into growth. Through the gothic tracery of bare branches, you can look along the backbone of the Edge, before oppressive pines close ranks. There, above the ominous roar of Harley Bank, I hear the shrill cat-like mewing of buzzards. Ten appear, hunting in a pack like Harris Hawks from Arizona. One turns, drops, dives, captures something, swoops off. I am once again alone.

            The path narrows, meandering around spooned out hollows, with Dog’s Mercury spearing through the fallen debris of last autumn. I spot a huge colony of Hart’s Tongue ferns clinging to a quarry face, their leaves reflecting the last of the sun and catching the percolating water. Weaving between silver birch, under a drapery of catkins I pass another huge quarry, where the strong buttress roots of yew and willow cling like talons on the precipitous Edge.    
             Everywhere the scars of industry have been stitched over by nature: limestone quarries becoming bird baths, nesting grounds and grassland. Dark, satanic remains of old quarries and kilns, alongside the green and pleasant land of Shropshire’s hedges and fields - it’s what makes Wenlock so interesting.

The Court of King Caractacus

Caer Caradoc was the legendary safe haven for the Celts and their leader Caractacus two thousand years ago. Even nowadays, looking out just as imposingly over the town of Church Stretton, with its crown of battlement-like rocks, this hill fort is far from empty.

            As I walk down the track I disturb a flock of around 100 fieldfares catching the warm February rays from their roost in the tangled branches of some hawthorns. Their grey underwings flash as they fly, like airborne mackerel. This is one of my favourite walks and I have visited this track in all seasons discovering everything from fossils to drinker moths. I leave the path and cross a field disturbing ravens picking the last off a sheep’s carcass.

            The ascent is breathtaking and so too is the view. I stand on the rocks at the height of 350m and look from Wrekin to Wenlock and Clee to Carding Mill. My first wasp of the year buzzes past alongside stubborn mounds of snow that still haven’t melted from three weeks ago. It is strangely still and warm on the leeward slopes and only as you mount the crest does the chill rush of wind hit you. The grass up here is as short as the square at Lords’ thanks to the sheep that nibble it down year in year out; the ground dry. As the sun begins to dip below the creases and folds of the Long Mynd I begin my descent back to Earth.