Spring - An Anthology For The Changing Seasons

Spring begins this Sunday, 20 March with the vernal equinox. In March and September, on dates variable between the 19th, 20th and 21st the length of daylight and darkness is equal worldwide. Confusingly, 1 March is also considered the first day of spring. The reasons are explained in this BBC Weather video. A movable feast indeed.

This year spring began on 18 February for me with the publication of Spring - An Anthology For The Changing Seasons. The book includes a contribution of prose from me. Published by Elliott & Thompson in association with The Wildlife Trusts, Spring features contemporary writing alongside classic extracts from authors including Gilbert White, Edward Thomas, D.H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas and Thomas Hardy. 

My piece puts the clock back five years to a life-changing experience. My response to my circumstances was very much influenced by my perspective on nature and the sense it gives me of my place in the world.

Above Sea Level: Cambridge Beechwoods, Cambridge Cranes

Traveller's Joy. Photo credit: St Stev, Flickr

One of the local 'old ways' I've travelled since childhood is the chalky Roman road known variously as Wool Street, Worsted Street and Via Devana. Trodden by legions, drovers, turkeys and sheep, it is now a lycra highway transporting scientists and software developers direct to Cambridge's research hubs. The route is part of the chalk ridge that runs from the Chilterns and links up with the Icknield Way. Seventy-four feet above sea level, out of reach of the marshy Granta valley (now a series of science park settlements), the Roman Road deposits its cyclist commuters on Shelford Road, just east of the Beechwoods nature reserve. From here the woodland looks towards Addenbrooke's hospital which is guarded by a troop of cranes that dot our landscape with bright red beacons. Medical progress advances across the landscape like lava. Looking at a map I notice that the Park & Ride echoes the ring of the Iron Age hill-fort at Wandlebury nearby.

The beechwood is the  place adopted by Cambridge author Robert Macfarlane as his personal 'wild' place, 'filled with a wildness I had not previously perceived or understood.' ( The Wild Places, Robert Macfarlane, published by Granta) In his book Macfarlane describes visiting as a gale advances one autumn. The kalaedoscope of light and colour as he enters the wood makes such an impression he backs out again just for the pleasure and fascination of re-entering. Today as I write on an overcast day at the tail end of January, Storm Jonas has reached Britain and is blowing mildly in the aftermath of record-breaking snowstorms on the eastern coast of the USA. As a metal gate on my walk sings its tunes in the wind, the beechwood is not the place I feel drawn to. For I have my own repertoire of special places whose topography, history, biology, modern being and personal memory I can call upon.

Anyone who chooses to acquaint themselves with the footpaths and green corridors where they live will soon find the waymarkers most important to them. Here are Macfarlane's:

'The waymarkers of my walks were not only dolmens, tumuli and long barrows, but also last year's ash-leaf frails (brittle in the hand), last night's fox scat (rank in the nose), this minute's bird call (sharp in the ear), the pylon's lyric crackle and the crop-sprayer's hiss.'

(The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane, published by Hamish Hamilton).

Here's a BBC Radio 4 episode of Clare Balding's Ramblings, stepping from Macfarlane's home into the green lanes nearby on the edge of Cambridge and heading out to his favourite trees. I love the spring birdsong in this broadcast: greenfinch, robin, woodpigeon in the beechwood and later great tit, chiffchaff and blackcap on the Roman road. But no notes from the garden warbler I photographed in the beech canopy there last year.

Wayfaring Tree - photo by Udo Schroter on Flickr

Orchid Army

Q: What do monkey, fly, lady, soldier and lizard have in common?
A: They are all species of British wild orchids!

There are dangling men, bonneted ladies, furry bumblebees and sticky fly lookalikes among the 56 species recorded in our country. Every bit as exotic as their hothouse cousins these flowers are exquisite to look at and not all as rare as might be assumed (though some, such as the lady's slipper orchid, exist thanks only to breeding programmes, top levels of secrecy and professional security guards).

Yesterday evening the Wildlife Trust and volunteers joined forces at Fulbourn Fen nature reserve for the annual orchid count. Six species are known here, but the focus was on the marsh orchid. I joined in as our army of fourteen walked side by side in a staggered line, aiming to cover the entire section of the site, regardless of thistle and thorn. 'You're out of line', the orchid drill sergeant shouted, but I think I got the hang of it eventually...

The small colony of 200 marsh orchids recorded in 2001 had increased last year to over 2000. Last night's total is still being totted up, but it was looking very healthy, with the marsh orchids appearing to outnumber the common spotted species found growing among them. Signs are that the Wildlife Trust's management plan for retaining the damp conditions of this ancient fen are working harmoniously. Volunteers and locals can help influence this; look out for work parties advertised through the Wildlife Trust website or on the village's community newsletter Fulbourn Forum. Every year a bit of brute force is required to battle the encroaching scrub that creeps into the fen and threatens to engulf everything.

Meanwhile this summer there's a call to action from the Natural History Museum and their new Orchid Observers project. Go on an orchid safari this month (June is peak time for most of our orchid species), take photographs and send in simple details such as site and date. There, done.

Marsh orchid photographed by Jo Sinclair

Common spotted orchid photographed by Jo Sinclair

Orchid count at Fulbourn Fen - photo Jo Sinclair

Orchid count at Fulbourn Fen - photo Jo Sinclair