FEBRUARY - "The time when skies are free from cloud..."
The time when skies are free from cloud,
Though still the robin whistles loud
In the bare garden croft,
The catkin, on the hazel tree,
Mistakes for summer flower the bee...
FEBRUARY BY GEORGE WALTER THORNBURY
On the 25th February, my son sent recordings of the birds around him at the foot of his French mountain. He lives there with his wife and daughter, aged three, who benefits enormously from the beautiful countryside. One thousand and twelve miles away, as the crow flies, I heard the skylarks as Ginny and I walked the dogs on the same day. Ginny and Judith heard them for the first time this year when they walked the dogs the day before. So many hopeful songs just now! The early mornings are joyous with the chorus of birds around us. And it's not only their song which fascinates. Their antics intrigue me too. Apart from Bob Robin, who has yet to introduce me to his mate, the regulars are coming in their couples to feed - both on the ground and at the feeding stations. This year I noticed the pairing in a big way on Valentine's Day and that seemed right and proper! It is getting more intense every day and yesterday I watched two doves in the Swedish Whitebeam as Bob Robin sat for a long time in the forsythia so that I could chat with him through the shower room window.
At the very beginning of February, I spotted two blue tits playing together in the spirea and, minutes later, Clemency saw them busy in and around the bee house. That's not a bee hive but a little house which is meant to tempt them to stay a while. Unfortunately, since Lydia gave me the gorgeous little cottage, few bees have been interested but there has been a race each spring, between the blue tits and the wrens to set up home there. Usually the blue tits win. We had the bee house when we lived in Wick and brought it with us to Stempster House in 2021. It's still looking good!
Looks like the blue tits will have the great tits for neighbours as the great tits are checking out the sparrow terrace wedged in the Swedish Whitebeam close.
The wrens are active and quite obvious now. They have been playing hide and seek with Little Dog Jess. They invariably come out on top - a good job too as Jessie would get up too close and probably swallow Jennie Wren whole. Jessie loves the birds - too much!
We have treecreepers here but it was a wren I saw shinning up the stone wall in the cottage garden recently. It seemed to walk vertically. Fascinating viewing!
I'm listening out for the treecreeper now too as they sing often between February and May. They do it while climbing the trees. The call is very high-pitched and accelerates after starting slowly. Quite distinctive.
When we lived in Wick, we sometimes saw cormorants in flight above the houses nearby. I like to see them hanging out their wings to dry on the rocks as the train leaves Helmsdale behind. They keep cropping up here too! In the middle of this month, Clemency watched one fly over the River Forss.
The river is a rich source of wildlife - in the water and out of it. When Ginny and I crossed the little bridge, as we left home for Inverness, we spotted a heron on a rock in the water - looking for all the world like a curmudgeonly little old man! That was a good day for birds - later we watched a kite patrolling the edge of Culbokie.
There was a morning, last weekend, when the sunrise painted our cream walls deep apricot. The house looked as if it had a tan! The birds seemed confused by the sunrise and a flock of rooks was behaving peculiarly as I looked down the garden towards the little wood. They swooped together and twisted in on their formation, looking like a murmuration of starlings - far fewer though and each individual so much larger than a starling.
Almost half as big again as a rook, and also with considerable aerial dexterity, is the raven. We have a pair which visits quite close. Clemency and Ginny saw them on our hill recently. Spotting a pair of ravens is something special and their massive size, as well as their deep and throaty call, is always stunning. One of my lasting memories of ravens is of the day I visited the Falls of Bruar and it seemed to me they were the ruling party there. They were magnificent and not just a little intimidating. My daughter bought a painting of a raven wearing a crown - and I feel that says a great deal about the ravens in the Scottish Highlands.
From a distance, rooks and crows can present a problem - I struggled to tell them apart a few days ago when I watched a game of dare taking place in and out of the wind turbines. Thankfully, there didn't appear to be any casualties. The crow family is well represented here. We have most of them but, thus far, magpies are scarce. Very much a one-off in Caithness. When the children were young they used to get excited as we approached Edinburgh on our journeys south to visit relatives and friends. We saw numbers of magpies bouncing along the verges there. We lived in Orkney then and had no magpies at all.
A much smaller pied bird is the cute little pied wagtail. We call them piedy wagtails. I don't know if it's general but that's who they are in our family! They live around here but don't often come into the garden. However, a week ago, one came to eat the breakfast crumbs outside the kitchen. Cheerful little visitor! Moments later the skies became loaded and threatening but the rain never came. A number of gulls came close over the fields around us and the wind picked up so my guess was that they were escaping a storm out at sea. We're very close to the sea. Our home is at the top of the hill and, as we set off towards the river, if we look to the north, we can see the Atlantic Ocean about four miles from us. Our River Forss empties into the ocean through the gorge at the Forss Hotel. If the day is clear, we can see the Orkney island of Hoy. It's a lovely view.
As well as the beautiful sunrises, we see the sunsets too - equally stunning but seemingly shorter lived for us. Last Saturday's sunset was remarkable for its own sake but also for the backdrop it provided. Our resident Stempster barn owl, now known as Sylvie, gave a magnificent display along the wild rose hedge across the road. It isn't a very long hedge and, of course, there are no wild roses in February, but, in front of the colourful sky behind the windmills, the scene was very memorable.
The thrush comes to us more often than the piedy wagtail but I wouldn't call him one of our regulars. He was here a few mornings ago for his breakfast but the jackdaws - crows again!!!! - came and scoffed the lot! Jackdaws were the first birds I noticed when we came to look around Stempster House. My daughter has a noisy video of them telling us to stay. We listened!
One tiny bird seen this month was the goldcrest. I'm glad when wrens and goldcrests are spotted at the end of the winter as they are the first to succumb to the severe weather. Their limited surface area makes it difficult for them to trap enough air to keep warm. Sometimes wrens will huddle together in large numbers to keep each other warm.
And last, but by no means the least of the birds outlined here this month, is the curlew. The curlew's high-pitched trill starts in February ahead of laying the eggs in April/May. At other times we hear the cur-lee sound quite clearly here. It is always exciting when we hear their bubbling mating song in February. It says "Spring"! They have been heard this week - but, sadly, not by me! I've heard the skylarks though so that will do very nicely. Thank you.
When we lived on Orkney and were surrounded by so many curlews, I made up a poem for the children. I gave it a title, "Sir Louis Curlewy". On Christmas Day 2024, it came back at me! Clemency had secreted away the original poem and made illustrations for it, then had it made into a book and gave it to me as a Christmas present. I was speechless! Her artwork is amazing.
Since then we have tweaked it for publication. Crowvus will be publishing it on World Curlew Day, 21st April 2025. The purpose of writing the poem was to teach my children facts about our neighbours. There were so many of them filling the skies around us in Orkney.
When the news is unbelievably sad - or even just unbelievable - our feathered friends are constant and, at this time of the year, convince me that "hope is the thing with feathers" (Emily Dickinson).
The quail in their little quail houses are very quiet and unobtrusive - especially now the poor male quail has been given his own little bungalow. He was a victim of domestic abuse within the small quail community here. The other male seems not to be victimised as he was. They are darling little birds and it's difficult to accept that there could ever have been a problem with them socialising - now that it's been sorted out.
The hens, on the other hand, are anything but quiet! I love to hear them clucking and chattering away to one another when I have jobs to do outside. They're good company - and... eggs!!!! My goodness, can they lay!!!! After almost fifty years of cooking for my family, I'm still learning new ways with eggs!!!!
When Lydia and her family came to stay earlier this month, the two little girls collected eggs to take home with them. They knew how special that was.
Judith then lifted them up so that they could sit in the gnarly sycamore. It was a lovely weekend for oldies and tinies alike - as well as those in between!!
By the rusty old iron gate from the road into the little wood, the crocus are flowering - two shades of purple and some rich buttery yellow ones too. They were planted there the first year we arrived and are multiplying very nicely now.
Snowdrops are wonderful don't you think? They seem to go on and on. They always make me smile and I feel a little bit sad when they are finished. But that does mean that Spring is moving closer. When I was young, I think I liked Autumn best but now Spring has the edge for me.
The iris reticulata are delightful next to the French windows. Irises are one of my favourites - all kinds of them - and these tiny, delicate and very intricately marked beauties are probably my favourite of the iris family. Mine are a deep purple but the ones which Clem has potted in the yard are lighter and equally stunning.
The elder has new leaves forming on its branches - such a rich green colour. On the same day I noticed them, I counted a seventh bulb pushing through in the pot of hyacinths by the porch door.
The flowering currant hedge on our hillside is now showing little tufts of the deepest pink on some of its branches. This has become something we look for as soon as February begins. The hedge is iconic and runs for quite a length down the hill.
I'm remembering Lincolnshire in February and the tiny golden tassels of hazel catkins come to mind. In my memory I see them dancing in the leafless trees and hedgerows. It will be some time before the rough round leaves appear on the hazel.
I recall some very cold Februaries in Lincolnshire - ice and snow and bitter rain. As the snow melted, the ditches filled up. In the Isle of Axholme, we called them dykes rather than ditches. Here, in the north of Scotland, a dyke is a wall.
Whatever they are called, they generally seem to need attention in February. As a little girl, I watched agricultural workers dredging and clearing the ditches as well as tending the hedges with hand held tools - all the while aching with the cold. Muffled up against it but saying very little to each other in order to preserve the little warmth they felt. Taking in the cold air as one spoke only made things worse.
Last month I remembered the folk who lived down Belshaw Lane, Carrhouse, Belton. This month I'm picturing the corner of Battlegreen, Epworth, where the sharp bend led through Carrside, Epworth and on to Wroot. Going up to the corner lived Mr. Anderson, his daughter and grandaughter, June. They lived next to Mrs Naylor's tiny shop. On the Studcross side of them was a small piggery belonging to Mr. Coggan. He lived there with his wife and daughter, Pat. Going round the corner, on the left was Mrs. Belcher's house and then, heading towards the little railway bridge, was the house where the Pettingers lived. The little bridge was removed a very long time ago but, when I was a little girl, we walked or rode under it. When I first learned to ride a bike I thought the bridge was a gateway to a world of magic. It is the next stretch of the little country road which I remember becoming flooded at this time of the year. Sedges and rushes stood above the water marking the boundaries of fields and the picture in my mind is washed in shades of grey and sepia.
In those days, we lived at Studcross Cottage. It was from there that I spotted my very first hare in the field across the lane from us. Later, when we lived on Belshaw Lane in Belton, I would watch hares playing in the dusty field which separated us from my grandparents' cottage further down. By then some hedges had been removed and the soil blew every which way in the winds.
The hares have been a regular sight through February at Stempster. This morning, one was hanging out with the sheep in the field next door.
Ginny caught two foxes - not in the cruel hunting way some people catch foxes - but on her trail camera. They were in the wee wood. We've found signs of them too and the dogs, particularly Orlando, are sometimes very unsettled when they go out into the garden before their bedtime.
Ours is a happy hunting ground for foxes and friends. The stone walls are full of mice and voles. Weasels have holes in the small cottage garden. Shrews appear when least expected.
It wasn't just Mr and Mrs Fox on the trail camera this month - the pine marten made an appearance too. Again, there have been signs - and sounds! Somehow it - or they - get into the loft. Sometimes it sounds like a party is going on in there!
The Northern Lights and the planetary alignment have been exciting for everyone in February. They put things in perspective really!
While power-hungry and excessively greedy leaders frighten us and fill us with utter sadness as we watch, through the media, the suffering of those who fall victim to them, the natural world and the endless universe uphold the potential for a fairer order and a more hopeful future. The human being who bears a heavy burden of insecurity may appear arrogant. This person pretends to be God, wanting to control the world, needing to be right and successful. A beast of tension has developed from a tiny baby born to human beings. There is no freedom for such a person. That person isn't really alive.
The Northern Lights would only be a photo opportunity. The planetary alignment would just inspire rhetoric.
Such people will do their best to destroy what is good for their own ends but, while a skylark sings and a flower bud opens, they will never stop those of us who want to hear and see these things with a hopeful heart.
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.
ETERNITY BY WILLIAM BLAKE
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