The countryside in February
Sarah Ryan is discovering signs of spring in the frozen landscape and stumbles upon an unlucky winged hunter
In these last days of winter, glimpses of the coming spring can be seen amid the leaf litter and between the trees. Little snowdrops have nuzzled up through the cold earth to prick green shoots into the cold, bright air. Clusters of them have sprung up beneath the trees beside the river, crowded together as though to keep warm. Some are hanging their cotton-white heads already: others are still working on sending out long, green leaves.
Fewer in number and gathered at the edges are the winter aconites; their yellow faces fringed by a dapper green ruff. All sprout up between the roots of elm and elder trees; soaking up the sunlight before the trees come into leaf.
Winter sun
I am looking over a squarely cut beech hedge, soaking up some of that precious sunlight myself. It is one of those cold February days where the frost in the shadows lingers on from morning until evening, but the sky is blue, and the shafts of sunlight, which stripe the woodland path, are gentle and warm.
I gaze at the array of tiny flowers while crows chatter in the branches above until the chill of the damp, half-frozen earth starts to seep up through the soles of my boots, and my toes begin to ache with the numb of cold. It is time to start moving again and warm them up.
The path is a gamble. In shadow, it is frozen hard under a glistening white sheen, but in those sunlit squares, the ice has melted to a slick clay mud. It does not matter too much: in my wellies, I can plough through almost anything. The puddles, captured in the deeper troughs, are lightly frozen, covered in a thin, fractured glazing of ice, which shatters under my boots; muddy water seeping up through the cracks.
Born to fish
The river, though it feels as cold as ice, is still flowing gently. A lone swan slides elegantly downstream, and a couple of ducks quack, like mocking laughter, to each other.
A little further along, I disturb a heron, which flaps away; long legs trailing and throat curled into a pronounced ‘z’. It alights, knee deep in the river, and stands absolutely motionless; its sharp, orange beak poised. I pause and watch from a distance. I have never yet seen a heron make a catch, and I would love to see this natural fisherman at work.
“The sun shone on the withered grass, The wind blew fresh and free” anne Brontë, ‘In Memory of A Happy Day in February’
They are such proficient hunters that it was once believed that their legs emanated a scent attractive to fish, which, swimming close, would soon find themselves speared up and sliding down the heron’s throat. Some fishermen even carried a lucky heron’s foot in their pocket, in the hope that it would bring them some of the bird’s success.
If this is true, it is certainly not working today, and a few minutes later, the bird takes off again, and I continue along the woodland path.
My toes are still numb in thick socks and boots, and I wonder, not for the first time, at the ability of waterfowl to withstand the extreme cold of the river at this time of year.
I turn off the path into the trees, where the air is rich with the smell of mulching leaves, damp wood and the musty scent of fungi. Somewhere to my right, out of sight, something is rustling in the brown-black rags of leaves. Maybe it is a blackbird hunting for its dinner, which, in turn, is no doubt burrowing as deep into the crumbling undergrowth as it can.
Closer to the river, ankle-deep puddles swamp my boots, but soon I reach the bank where the sun shines straight down on to the gleaming water: a beam of warmth and lemony light. We will gain more than three minutes of daylight every day this month, and I want to make the most of every single one of them.
“Thou standest by the margin of the pool, And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school To Patience, which all evil can allay. God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey”
Edward Hovell-Thurlow, ‘The Heron’