January 2022
The winds blew hard on New Year’s Eve and gifted us with a wild night and a roaring campfire but we woke to the warmest of days on the first of January. A flow of subtropical air had blown in from the Azores and was bathing the UK in its warmth. It gave us the warmest day on record, a mighty 16.3C was reached, breaking the last record set in 1916, reaching 15.6C down here in Cornwall.
I went out early and ventured down to the river and was greeted by the heron, as still as a statue, on the grassy flat area by the water. I watched it slowly lift itself off the ground and glide away over the tops of the trees, following the river down towards the sea. What a majestic sight to be allowed to witness. As I plodded my way back across the field, I passed the snowdrops gathering in their familiar haunts in the damp, woody areas. The gorse bushes were out, lining the hedges with their dense spiky thorns and golden yellow flowers, sending out waves of their coconut scent. Further up, on the top of the hill, nestling in the warmer dips of sunny hedgerows, the primroses were already in flower. How crazy is that? In January? I remember in my youth, (many moons ago), that primroses were an easter/mothers’ day kind of plant. It must be a confusing time for so many wild flowers. The new fresh green leaves of many other plants were forcing their way up above ground; cleavers, alexanders, foxgloves, campions and the grass grows throughout the winter season. The calendula continues to flower, whatever the weather. We are surrounded by many fields of daffodils, ripe for the picking but the fields have been empty of workers and the daffodils are being left to rot. This is the second year running that it has happened. The waste of time and energy is insane and it’s time these fields were used for growing food for local markets.
Needless to say, the warm weather gave way to more icy conditions coming in from the arctic. Although the storms and bitter weather ravaged the North and Scotland, with hundreds of school closures, power outages and flooding, we escaped most of it. I looked up weather notes for last year in January, there were several mornings of minus 5, down to minus 7 on a couple of occasions, bringing solid, rock hard ice ponds on the track. All the hills around here were lethal with long, black slicks of ice along the side of the roads. Even walking on the roads could prove treacherous and wellingtons were of no use whatsoever, unless you wanted to practice skiing skills. There has been nothing like it this January. Light frosts visited occasionally and some cold nights but the sun’s presence was felt on most days. A very low sun, shining in through windows that rarely see the sun in the summer, it is a pale, bright and sharp sun, not yet ready to warm our faces but throwing a dazzling light across the land. In addition to the blue skies of daytime we were treated to many clear skies at night giving us vast displays of stars, with only the hoots of the owls breaking the silence. On the 17th a blanket of fog lifted and revealed an enormous Wolf Moon that graced the skies and the whole of the UK was able to witness this celestial event. Comments and photographs were tweeted across the country, a strong sense of our need for shared experience and the celebration of the natural world – more noticeable since the isolation of the covid era.
There are some new recruits to the bird community since the addition of sunflower seeds to the dishes. Two goldfinches now regularly join in with the meals. Their bright red and yellow colours flashing across the garden, such a joyous bird to see. All the usual members of the bird population continue to feed on the food, and also, sadly, the rat. I stood in amazement as I watched him (her?), shin up a metal pole about 8 foot in height, in the rain, no slipping down, as if it had some sort of sucker pads on its paws and then swing from the various bird feeders, supping on tasty morsels from each dish. I’m sure he waved at me.
We have just been told about a squirrel ‘baffle’. We think this could mark the end of the days for the rat, in terms of lunching out for free on a daily basis. According to birdwatching.com the baffle is, ‘a contraption or device that is used to stop squirrels from climbing UP a bird feeder pole or jumping DOWN directly onto a feeder from above’. Surely this must also apply to rats? Watch this space.
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