The Fen in Winter

 

Although it is pretty quiet at Strumpshaw today, there’s always something to engage. Let’s go for a walk and see what we can find. We’ll keep it simple, avoid the muddy riverbank and complete the south eastern loop taking in the woodland and the river path before heading back to Reception via the Sandy Wall. What can we find on this pleasantly bright January day, albeit with a biting nor wester rippling the reeds? Snowdrops: dainty pearls of spring, hope rising through the decay of autumn past. They dot the path side as we move into the deeper part of the wood where Great Tits and Robins are already singing in proclamation of ownership of a small patch of this damp carr where the sad skeletons of ash stand bare and dead against the blue winter sky. We can stop and admire where contrast is made between the nodding heads of snowdrops and the layered strata of turkeytail fungus affixed to a tree stump. As we look, we hear a Stock Dove giving its low-pitched exclamation of surprise.

 

The wood is behind us and we can look over open fields where Fieldfares and Redwings hop around, probing the soft earth for worms and other succulents. Some of these wanderers of fields are helping the local Blackbirds strip berries from ivy heavily draped over path side oaks. They are wary of us, but occasionally perch on an exposed branch for a few seconds before diving back into cover. It’s not only Fieldfares here though, for as we watch we see a Mistle Thrush similarly engaged in the feast. A nearby singing Song Thrush completes the set.

 

The unpleasantly cold wind prevents us dallying along the riverside so we return to the wood, sit on a bench and wait to see what turns up. Blue Tits acrobatically tease seeds from alders, a pair of Pheasants stalk one another through the undergrowth and lead us to focus on something hunched against the trunk of a birch. It is a hare, wide eyed and beautiful. It sits there just 20 metres away, unperturbed by our close proximity. It yawns, it preens, it nibbles on some grass, it raises its long, silky ears and fixes us with a stare. And then this normally shy creature, all knowing brown eye, ambles away becoming lost in the tangle, leaving us enriched and thankful for a small gift from nature.