Stand still amid joys of May

W hile we humans self-isolate, lockdown and social distance, nature has been getting on with the day-today business of spring. April was a record-breaking month for sunshine and this month seems set to be much the same. But the burn across the road is running very low and the land badly needs rain.

May, you might say, is bustin’ out all over. You have to enjoy it while you can, for the fresh green of emerging foliage on the trees is short-lived.

This is the month to see the white candelabra of horse chestnut blossom and frothy white rowan blossom. I’ll be picking the rowans in the autumn for the Doyenne’s rowan and apple jelly which is just the best accompaniment for roast game and venison. Alders, one of Scotland’s native trees and common along riverbanks and in damp places, have male and female catkins. The male are long like hazel catkins, and the female ones are small cylinders that develop into tiny cones when they dry out.

Shapely, pale-green sycamore leaves are unfolding – miniature versions of the fully grown leaf. Their yellow hanging flowers will develop into the familiar boomerang-shaped keys which spiral earthwards like mini-helicopters when they have ripened. Buttery-yellow broom is flowering too, adding another shade to nature’s colour chart.

Walking with Inka alongside a field of oilseed rape, a hare appeared, dandering down towards me, minding its own business. I stopped to watch him – or maybe it was her. Inka was close enough to tell him in a stage whisper to sit.

It could only have been about 20 feet from me when it realised I was not part of the natural order of its life, and it stopped to assess the situation. Caution being the better part of valour, it slipped unhurriedly into the cover of the rape.

It stopped again and the last I saw, poking above the vegetation, were the large, black-tipped radar ears ever on the alert for danger, flicking back and forth, receiving and decoding every subtle message coming in from all around. It confirmed again how much you can see in the countryside if you stand stock still, even if you are in full view.

“Walking with Inka alongside a field of oilseed rape, a hare appeared, dandering down towards me, minding its own business

You’ll see common golden buttercups flowering until August. Look out for their big cousins, the marsh marigolds or kingcups, floating in shallow water along the burn edges.

There’s white wood sorrel and chickweed, white dead nettle which looks like stingy nettles but doesn’t sting, perennial chickweed, stitchwort and sweet cicely’s lacy white blossom.

Alkanet’s brilliant blue flowers and pink purslane add to the kaleidoscope of spring colour. Every spring I look forward to the blue and yellow flashes of the petite field pansies, and wild pansies or heartsease, which have just enough time to announce their presence before they are shouldered aside by sprouting undergrowth.

Three oystercatcher chicks were just a step away from never hatching when I noticed the beautifully camouflaged eggs in the nest, no more than a scrape in the ground lined with pebbles, a few leaves and small twigs. I saw the parent bird running up the side of a fence, hoping to distract my attention.

I stopped long enough to take a couple of pictures then hid behind a wall to watch. It wasn’t long before the bird cautiously made its way back to the nest. It flew on to a fencing post and, checking carefully all round, dropped to the ground and settled on the eggs once more. I was thankful I hadn’t disturbed it so much that it deserted the nest.

Oystercatcher eggs in their nest, a simple scrape in the ground lined with pebbles, a few leaves and small twigs, and, right, marsh marigolds framed by the old bridge at The Burn Estate, near Edzell. Pictures: Angus Whitson.