by Stephen Moss
A long, straight road runs east to west across the moor, rising only 2 or 3 feet above the surrounding fields. This extra height is crucial, for those fields are currently awash with a thin layer of water; in some places a foot deep. Using the car as a hide, I drive slowly along, stopping occasionally to scan with my binoculars.
The flat, silver surface of the water is broken by tight green clumps of rushes, not yet in flower; and little blades of spring grass, poking through to reach the sunlight above. This is ideal for a host of freshwater waders, including the glossy and extrovert lapwing. The air echoes with their early-spring calls, as they tumble across the sky in their elaborate courtship displays. One lapwing has a brief spat with a nearby redshank, another wader which has already begun to defend its watery territory here.
Among the lapwings and redshanks are a score of black-tailed godwits; tall, rangy wading birds, standing ankle-deep in the water. Some are asleep, heads tucked beneath their wings; others probe into the mud with their long, slightly upturned bills. They are accompanied by a pair of dunlins, and four golden plovers, one of which has already acquired his smart breeding dress of jet-black and spangled gold.
Most of the godwits are still in winter plumage, a muddy, greyish-brown shade. But a few are already beginning to moult into their splendid summer garb, suffusing their head, neck and back with a deep, rich shade of pinkish-orange. Black-tailed godwits do not breed here on Tealham Moor; indeed only a handful of pairs breed in Britain at all. These birds are heading back north to Iceland, where they nest on flower-filled meadows against a backdrop of glaciers, taking advantage of the long hours of summer daylight to raise their family.
At the back of the moor, in the deeper part of the water, several hundred wigeon are bobbing about in the water, dipping their heads down to nibble the sweet grass. They, too, are passing through on their way north; in their case, to Siberia. But still no true spring migrants – long-distance travellers from Africa.
Then, just as I am about to leave, I notice a small movement much closer to me. By the edge of the road, dwarfed by an accompanying swan, is a small, brown wading bird, sporting a notable black mask. A glance through my binoculars reveals a narrow yellow ring around its eye. Finally, after what seems like weeks of waiting, my first returning migrant of the year: a little ringed plover, newly arrived from the tropics of Africa.
Little ringed plovers have an iconic status among British birders, especially those of my generation. In the years after the Second World War, when the countryside was suffering so much destruction of habitat, this wader bucked the trend, colonising Britain from mainland Europe.
It did so, ironically, by taking advantage of progress. The millions of roads and homes built during the post-war economic boom required tons and tons of gravel; and this led to the digging of gravel pits, mainly around the London suburbs where I grew up. Little ringed plovers usually nest on bare riverbanks, scoured clean by winter floods, as this helps them to camouflage their eggs and chicks from predators. Gravel workings provided the perfect analogue to this natural habitat.
Soon after the little ringed plover’s arrival, in 1949, the naturalist and writer Kenneth Allsop published a charming novel about them, Adventure Lit Their Star. He was drawn to the birds precisely because they had chosen to breed not in some remote wilderness, but in what he memorably described as ‘the messy limbo that is neither town nor country’.
I grew up in that same ‘messy limbo’ of London’s suburbia, very close to where the little ringed plover began its conquest of Britain. As a result, I developed a strong attachment to this modest bird. So encountering this returning traveller today, almost within sight of my home, is both a surprise and a joy.
IN THE GARDEN, spring has arrived bang on time. The morning of the vernal equinox dawns bright, sunny and warm. Today is one of only two occasions each year when the entire globe experiences twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness – give or take the transitions at dawn and dusk. And for most of us, it marks the first day of the most exciting, jam-packed and eventful season in the calendar: spring.
To celebrate this moment of global unity in their own small way, my children have chosen to leave the comfort of the sofa and play outside, in the garden. They are astonished – as am I – by the sudden appearance of crocuses and daffodils, which seem to have sprung up overnight, as if the long spell of ice and snow just a few weeks ago never happened. Bumblebees flit from bloom to bloom, while a pair of buzzards takes advantage of the rising temperatures, and the thermal air currents they produce, to soar high into the morning sky.
But for me, this jigsaw of spring still has a few pieces missing. The swallows that chatter above next door’s farmyard are still somewhere well to the south of here; as are the vast majority of other returning migrants. But one summer visitor should be here; and this morning, as I tread carefully across the dew-laden grass, I shall surely hear it.
Things might be easier if I could temporarily silence the other birds: the rooks cawing constantly from the top of the ash trees; the robins singing their sweet song, and the song thrushes their more deliberate one; the dunnocks’ warble, and the blue tits’ chatter.
I strain my ears – is that it? No, just another blue tit. And then, 50 yards to the east, from the far side of our neighbour’s garden, the sound that, for me, marks the true arrival of spring finally reaches my ears.
Chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff …
Yes, it’s the bird which makes identification easy by singing its own name: the chiffchaff. Chiffchaffs are one of the first migrants to arrive back here each spring, usually reaching our parish in the third week of March. They have not had as far to come as some of their cousins: their closest relative, the willow warbler, travels from the southern tip of Africa, whereas most of our chiffchaffs spend the winter in Spain, Portugal or North Africa.
Indeed in recent winters, chiffchaffs have sometimes stayed put, usually in the south-west, where milder winters mean there are still small insects to be found. But most still make the short but potentially hazardous journey from the other side of Europe; and I’m pleased that this one, at least, has made it through.
Chiffchaffs aren’t the most colourful or striking of birds, being small, slender and olive-green in colour, with no obvious distinguishing field-marks. Yet for me they have a real charm, perhaps because I associate them so closely with the start of my favourite season. Within a week or two my garden – and gardens and hedgerows throughout the British countryside – will be echoing to the sound of chiffchaffs from dawn to dusk, a sound we shall continue to hear throughout spring and summer. So another piece of spring’s jigsaw is firmly in place; with many more to come.
Meanwhile, the buzzards have soared almost out of sight; two brown specks hanging motionless in the clear blue sky.
THE GRASS IS getting greener, the shadows are becoming shorter, and the clocks go forward tonight to mark the start of British Summer Time. I am passing through the southern part of the parish, whose wide open fields contrast with the more enclosed area around my home. Among the gulls and swans gathering in the rough pasture, I notice, in the far distance, three medium-sized brown lumps. Not clods of earth, but hares; March hares, indeed.
In this part of Somerset, you can’t get away from hares. Leaping hares, boxing hares, hares with huge, floppy ears. Sadly these are not real, but either painted, sculpted or cast in bronze. If you want a picture or a paperweight, a key ring or a fluffy toy, or even a bottle of beer named after a hare, I can find you one. The real thing is a little bit trickier.
As in much of the rest of Britain, we have a glut of the hare’s close relative, the rabbit. Cycling around the lanes and droves of the parish, I see them everywhere: running, sitting, lolloping … does any other animal, apart from the rabbit, lollop?
Now, you may be of the opinion that there isn’t much difference between a rabbit and a hare – in which case you’ve surely never seen a real, live hare. For compared with a rabbit,
a hare is a Ferrari, not a Ford Focus; a Michelangelo, not a Rolf Harris; a Pelé, not a Vinnie Jones – in short, as close to the epitome of grace, beauty and style as any wild animal has a right to be.
Even before a hare moves, its shape tells you this is no ordinary creature. As it hunches close to the ground, ears twitching, its energy is barely contained. As soon as it springs into action the sense of length is palpable: long ears, long legs and long body, which somehow all fall into proportion as the animal explodes into speed. The tail is small and dark-tipped, not like the rabbit’s showy powder-puff; and the sheer power of an animal which can run almost twice as quickly as the fastest human being on earth is simply awesome.
The hare’s speed is just one of its armoury of weapons against predators. Another strategy is to lie flat against the ground in a shallow depression known as a ‘form’. The hare’s apparent ability to vanish completely, allied to the knowledge that they don’t dig burrows, led to the animal being granted magical qualities. And because, like most mammals, hares are largely nocturnal, they are not seen so often during the day. All this helps explain our long love affair with this mysterious and elusive creature.
It took me a while before I even saw a hare here in the parish. My wife Suzanne had come across them, as she drove the children to nursery along Kingsway, the long, winding road which joins the centre of the village to the A38. The children had seen them too, reporting this to me with great excitement.
But it was not until I took to my bicycle, and began to explore the back lanes behind my home where the ground rises up towards the villages of Chapel and Stone Allerton, that I finally stumbled across a group of hares. Even then, I almost cycled straight past – at first mistaking them for the usual rabbits. Once I realised what they were, though, I was able to stalk them by crouching down behind the camber of the field.
They hid well: body flat, ears down, and stock-still, apart from a nervous twitch of their huge, brown eyes. When I finally got too close, their ears pricked up, the black tips twitching like a sprinter waiting for the starting gun. Then they were off, in an explosion of movement; from stasis to speed in a fraction of a second. I was left frustrated at the brevity of our encounter, yet also elated that I had seen them at all.
Hares are usually regarded as ‘one of ours’: a native animal, contrasting with the alien rabbit, which was brought to Britain for food by the Romans. Yet we now know that the hare was brought here too – probably even earlier than the rabbit, during the Iron Age. But perhaps because, unlike the rabbit, it has never reached pest proportions, we are more inclined to regard it as a true Brit.
Hares are most famous for their habit of boxing, especially on bright, cold days in early spring, earning them the unfortunate epithet ‘Mad March Hare’. Like so many things about hares, we haven’t got this one quite right. This is not, as is often assumed, rival males fighting over a female; but the female testing out her suitors to see if they are up to the job. As so often in nature, when it comes to courtship, it is the female’s preference that matters, not that of the male.
IT IS THE last day of March, exactly one quarter of the way through the year. And although a casual glance could lead you to assume that the landscape has hardly changed since the start of January, the wildlife of the parish has undergone dramatic, and in many cases life-changing, experiences.
New Year frosts, followed by January snows, February thaws and March winds, have all taken their toll. But those plants and animals which have managed to survive are now ready to embark on the roller-coaster journey of spring. During the next three months, a rush of new life will change the face of the landscape and its wildlife, as birds and mammals, flowers and insects, reptiles and amphibians, trees, mosses and lichens respond to the lengthening hours of daylight, and the growing warmth of the sun.
And of all the changes I shall witness, the next month, April, will see the most dramatic and profound.
APRIL
ON EASTER SUNDAY, the cross of St George flies proudly above the church tower, battered by a stiff north-westerly breeze. Inside the thick stone walls, the Reverend Geoffrey Fenton preaches his Easter sermon. Outside, another form of resurrection continues apace: the onslaught that is the arrival of spring.
Clear blue skies, studded with a few low clouds, belie a chill in the air as I venture outdoors for a morning bike ride with the children. The sound of what they call the ‘teacher bird’, the syncopated song of the great tit, permeates the landscape; competing with the trill of wrens, descant of chaffinches, and the clear, pure tones of the latest arrival, the blackcap. In a willow tree by the rhyne at the bottom of the lane, a pair of chiffchaffs is setting up territory. They flit around the pale green catkins, continually pumping their tails up and down to keep their balance.
As we head back home, the children trailing their bikes behind them, the sunlight catches a small bird as it flies low over the grassy field by Perry Road. It is a shape at once familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar, for I haven’t seen it for almost half a year. It is a returning swallow: my first of the spring.
I feel almost tearful as I realise that my emotional allegiance has been transferred from another returning migrant. Having lived half my life in suburbs and cities, for me the swift was always the bird that marked the true coming of summer. But now, in my fifth year in the countryside, I have shifted my loyalty to the swallow, whose constant twittering, from April to September, provides a seasonal soundtrack to our lives here in the village.
Not that this bird intends to hang around. Its long, slender wings power it onwards, as they have for the past five thousand miles, and will do for many more. It passes low over the field by Perry Farm, before rising up into the sky to clear the farm buildings, as it heads towards the parish boundary. Within minutes it has left us far behind, crossing rural Somerset, over the Cotswold Hills, and on towards the north.
Years ago, I stood on the volcanic island of Surtsey, off the south coast of Iceland, an island so new that it didn’t even exist when I was born. As I tried to come to terms with this disconcerting notion, I saw a swallow hawking for insects under sunny blue skies. It was a true pioneer – swallows do not even nest in Iceland – pushing the boundaries of its range to seek out new places to live and breed.
Over the years I have watched swallows crossing the Sahara Desert in Morocco, and the Negev Desert in Israel; alongside big game in the Masai Mara and Okavango Delta; at Cape May in New Jersey, and Punta Tombo in Patagonia. In all these far-flung places I have experienced the same sense of wonder. How can this tiny bird, weighing barely half an ounce, cross the world’s continents with such ease?
That same wonder grips me today, long after the swallow has flown out of sight; and I await with delicious anticipation the return of ‘our’ swallows, currently somewhere to the south. One day, during the next week or two, I shall hear that familiar twitter, as they swoop down to land on the telegraph wires beside our home.
Later that day, as I collect the Sunday papers from the village stores, I mention my swallow; and am told that Mrs Puddy has beaten me to it, having seen her first swallow here on the first day of the month.
AT QUARTER PAST six – after dawn, but before the sun has risen above the horizon – the yaffling call of a green woodpecker echoes across a landscape draped in mist. The distant Mendips are only just visible, and a thin veil of grey covers the sky, as a shapely half-moon struggles to break through.
Rabbits skitter across the dew-drenched village lawns, while wood pigeons, disturbed by my passing, launch themselves into the cool, thin air. Like an overweight diver rashly attempting a leap from the high board, one plummets headlong towards the earth, yet just manages to avoid crashing, rising back into the air with a noisy clatter of wings.
As the moon climbs in the strengthening blue sky, a hidden blackcap is in full voice, its fluty song rippling out across the landscape to signal its return. I often wonder, if we heard the blackcap’s song more regularly, whether we might rate it even
higher than the usual leaders in the hit parade of British birdsongs, the blackbird and song thrush.
Meanwhile, in the centre of the village, as early-morning commuters stop off to pick up their daily newspapers, the telegraph wires hum expectantly. Throughout the winter they have borne the weight of jackdaws, starlings and collared doves – hefty birds all, causing the wires to bow heavily.
Today, a smaller, lighter burden will finally make landfall. Since that first sighting a few days ago, I have seen several swallows in the skies over the village; birds passing through on their way further north. But this morning, as I cycle beneath the wire that crosses the road between the Pack Horse Inn and Avery’s Garage, I notice a small, slender bundle of feathers perched there. The first of our own swallows is back.
This bird may be alone today, but within a week others will arrive, and soon settle down to breed. All over the British countryside, from Scilly to Shetland, swallows are returning to their ancestral homes: for not only do these little birds perform the miracle of travelling all the way to Africa and back, they also manage to navigate to the very place where they were born. Such skills are almost beyond our powers of imagination, though not beyond our ability to wonder.
But these birds’ stay with us is all too brief. Much sooner than we imagine, in late August and early September, they and their offspring will gather again on these same wires, this time chattering rather than silent, as if discussing the best route to take on their journey south. Then, at some unseen signal, they will head off on that epic journey: across Europe, the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert, over the tropic of Cancer, the equator, and the tropic of Capricorn, all the way to southern Africa. But for the moment, this solitary bird perches discreetly on the telegraph wire, ignored by busy passers-by on their way to work.
