Jenny Dixon

Wharfedale Naturalists Society

wharfedale-nats.org.uk

AS January winds slowly to its end, the weather seems to be doing its winter worst – snow, ice, rain and endless mud! It’s difficult to believe in Spring. This was especially clear to me as just before Christmas John and I made our way over the Moor to Skipton for our vaccination. A pale wintry sun illuminated bleak, frost-ravaged fields and the trees paraded their black skeletons across the landscape.

Then, this morning, sunshine! I ventured into the garden and discovered my Witch Hazel covered in the untidy, auburn tuffets of female flowers lit to a foxy blaze by the low sun. These showy flowers are the equivalent of the carmine tufts we used to look out for as children on our hedgerow hazels, appearing late and awaiting pollination from the lambs’ tails of the male catkins. I also spotted the shiny disks of celandine leaves and fat buds on the camellias. In fact, the year is at a tipping point. We can still enjoy the winter specials – the siskins, little splashes of olive, yellow and black – as they gather around the seed feeders, and the occasional redpoll – a finchy bird with streaky brown back, a flush of pink on the breast and that neat red spot on the head. Though small, they always seem rather serious characters, their eye-stripe giving their faces a severe expression. One visited us last week.

Meanwhile, Nature is already making statements about the future. Tawny owls, in town and countryside are vocal, establishing their breeding territories, foxes engage in nightly duets, the staccato barks of the courting males and the strangulated shrieks of the vixens, with the promise of cubs to come. This also reminds me that our local badger clans will be busy in their setts, renovating, extending, and furnishing the breeding chambers with fresh bedding. The sows usually give birth in late February.

I like to enjoy what is happening now but also to look out for signs of change – especially in trees. About now, twig tips thicken. You can see incipient buds – the slim elegant beech buds, still tightly rolled, the sticky buds on sycamore and, better still, on horse chestnut. There is a wonderful specimen of the latter outside the Ilkley Health Centre that always seems to be first to burst into bud and leaf. Worth keeping an eye on. But, my favourite – and always last – are ash buds – visible now as small ink-black pads – that will swell as the season advances till at last the green of the leaves break through. Something to look forward to – and, a lot to enjoy right now.

NB. RSPB Garden BirdWatch next weekend!