Nature Notes: January 2025

MYSTERIES AND MIRACLES

January: a pregnant pause. Whilst new beings are intricately woven in wombs, beneath leaves and soil there's also a stirring of unseen roots and shoots. It's that time of year when we poignantly reflect whilst also look forwards in hopeful expectation.

December highlights: Skies colour-washed with grey, crimson and saffron light; a rare 'major lunar standstill' full moon; extra-friendly robins; the nostalgic call of owls in a far wood; early hazel catkins shaking out their tails like bunting; the bloom of a single pink rose in the garden on my birthday; a thistle 'Christmas star' in the field; scooping a trapped chestnut-brown Bank vole out of tub of an old sheep lick; even more birds' nests apparent in now leafless branches and the russets, golds and verdigris lichen shining bright on trunks and draped along the hedgerows; in snug dens the once dormant fertilised eggs of female badgers starting to develop.

Lowlights: Clammy cold, soggy fields, bleak rain, sludge and mud; the williwaw of storm Danagh and in the silence in between the sudden violent squalls and snatched gusts, a deep rumble, a 'whoosh' and the toppling of a tree. Paths and fields strewn with crudely broken ends of limbs of wood with bare, white, twisted skin, as if wrenched from human-like sockets. Unseasonal weather, as I write, not even the possibility of a flindrikin snow shower.

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Key Messages:Keep the eyes of your heart open. Appreciate the joys of all life and be empathetic to the on-going drama of nature all around you.

What to look for/listen to in January: carpets of winter heliotrope, wafting captivating scents of baking when all else smells distinctively earthy; pregnant badgers; voles and mice rustling amongst the leaves; early frogspawn if it's mild; the excited, jumbled squeaks and whistles of flocks of starlings just before they settle or leave their roosts.

More likely to see/hear: glinting diamonds in sunshine after cold frosty nights; patches of 'shoot rootling' along with crocus and green snowdrop blades piercing the leaf-litter; the bone-chilling mating calls of both male and female foxes; rooks repairing their nests; sunshine yellow aconites piercing the gloom; hedgerows 'singing' with territorial sparrows, robins, wrens and tits.

What you can do:

1) Participate in the Field Studies Council's 'Signs of Spring Survey' from 1st January 2025.

2) Keep feeding and watering the birds and other wildlife. Take part in the world's largest garden wildlife survey with the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch between 24th-26th January 2025.

3) If/when the temperatures really drop, float a ball in your pond (to retain an airhole for hibernating frogs and newts) and in water troughs to keep the surface water moving, not just for cows, sheep and horses but foxes, deer, birds and other creatures.

Wishing you all a very happy new year - may the 'spring' be in your step as you walk up the hill to meet every morning.