‘Wind and rain sacrifice the weak, the old and the luckless among our flora and fauna; drowning, starving and crushing. But there are evident tiny reminders of the cyclical wonder of the world we live in…’
Meteorologically speaking January is midwinter and the ‘bleak midwinter’ perhaps, at least as far as hopes of casting a line are concerned. Once again, with perennial predictability, my local rivers have lost their identity and the banksides disappear. The river is a raging, broiling beast; less serpentine now, just angry, voluminous and direct, intent on clearing everything in its path, quickly or slowly. Canals and ponds are brim full and brown too and in the last few weeks of sub-zero yo-yoing temperatures, often frozen around their edges.
None holds any allure for me now, despite a couple of half-hearted forays and their inevitable blanks. Instead, I look ahead to a time when the opaque lifelessness of what I see before me will be flushed through, carrying my disappointment away with it. Winter storms are a constant reminder of the power of nature.
Wind and rain sacrifice the weak, the old and the luckless among our flora and fauna; drowning, starving and crushing. But there are evident tiny reminders of the cyclical wonder of the world we live in…
Among the strewn wreckage and debris is new hope; emergent buds and early flowering plants lure outlier pollinators. A singular bumble-bee bounces drowsily from shrub to shrub searching for succour. Specks of colour illuminate the leaf-litter as garden birds toss through it.
Snowdrops hang pendulous here and there, while blotched white leaves of pulmonaria (or lungwort) spread across the understory, offering up pink and blue flower cups. The earliest crocuses lie limply on the lawn, craving those weak sunshine days when they will summon the strength to lift their necks and heavy heads to break, open-petalled from the life-giving force of that distant star.
Birdsong fills the air from leafless hedges and trees, and at this time of year it is easier to tune into new melodies and spot them vying for primacy amongst their number, a territorial crescendo building through the mid-mornings. Like studying a float or casting a fly, watching birds affords me temporary freedom, wrenching me away from the anxieties and confusions of my mind. They keep me in thatmoment, in awe, earthing my current.
Three things matter to them: to eat, to pass on their genes and not to be predated along the way. Some present as being loners, while others are familial and play in groups, or flock together for protection, a unity among species. Rooks and Jackdaws cartwheel and soar together in the high winds, ragged black flags torn asunder from their high perches in bare oaks and beeches.
In the late afternoon, parties of long tailed tits dart around the silver birches, twittering from twig to branch to twig once more, dangling as trapeze artists in their search for food before roosting later as an extended family unit. This they do shoulder to shoulder along a limb and share the burden of being the bookends by rotating their positioning in the line to keep from succumbing to the cold.
Robins furiously chide one another around gardens and woodland alike, setting out their stall and claiming the best places to live. Blue tits explore unoccupied nesting boxes, feasting on the spiders that took occupancy to avoid the wet.
Birdsong attracts other hungry predators, marking out these same spots. Foxes and domestic cats sniff the air and are ever alert to the faintest movement. Even the stoat which crosses my path on a morning wander, his or her little legs rotating in cartoon fashion, scampers from a bankside burrow to the meadow hedgerow, its tiny body hugging the ground.
I feel lucky to be able to explore parts of the countryside nearby where there seems no shortage of house sparrows, greenfinches or starlingsas elsewhere in Britain, and yet I still find the greatest joy in newspecies (new for me) when I spot bramblings, linnets and meadow pipits among myriad chaffinches.
My winter search for sightings of a barn owl is over at last! I catch a glimpse of the first one, then a mile or so further away, a second adult bird quartering in the gloaming, stalling on handbrake turns and dropping down for a hapless vole. Recurring visits are made when the weather and conditions feel right to capture their beauty in my mind’s eye, if not through a lens.
Soon the daylight will lengthen and as the sun climbs its trajectory, the earth in this hemisphere will warm and awaken again fully.
Writing & Images – Earthing the Current (Midwinter 2025)
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