So finally, between rain-soaked days and bright gusty mornings, a change is happening. The mantel with which the natural world is overspread is definitely, and daily, switching hue: spring is here. Sap is rising, flowers have risen, grass is verdant, birds are nesting, and out in the fields hares are jumping like mini-deer – and the dogs go berserk!
The darling buds of March, plum and wild cherry, such negligible and incidental things in the eyes of many, are beginning their slow burst, breaking winter's back with the happy strength of sunlight. Calyx of catkins are dropping to reveal the green bottle brush thrust – a shameless sexual move. Under the feet the grass roots are taking up where they left before the snows and new green –bright delicious sensual green– is filling flawless leaves that tremble in fresh breezes.
Rivers are high and muddy, full of old branches swiftly taken down to the swollen lakes and beyond. Even the cloying clumps of pathway mud have a different smell – alive again to greet the new blue of the year. From out of such is growing violets, their colours stunningly free.
Now, apart from the poor slave-driven bees, only the red firebugs are out, mindlessly mating as they colonise even more, but within days the hungry ladybirds, dozy caterpillars and gadding mayflies will show themselves: a boon for the blue tits, their presence welcomed as the necessary linchpin in the wheel of life.
And what do we humans do? We graffiti the trees!
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