Tright here have been shenanigans, frights and startles within the evening. The flimsy fence dividing Nightingales Area in half has come down and the (non‑electrified) electrical tape is ribboning within the wind. A number of the fence posts have popped up out of the sodden floor, leaving glinting wells of water.
I can not fathom what’s occurred. However the horses are settled and never injured, and I know as we speak – though I can’t but see it – that the spring grass is rising. Neither horse involves nuzzle my pockets for treats; they’re grazing with a brand new focus.
As I repair the fence between the baleful, far-seeming and romantic tones of a mistle thrush on one aspect, and the hotter, repeated phrases of a music thrush on the opposite, one other sound comes into my consciousness. One which has been the soundtrack to this winter, just like the backdrop of working water. Because the morning fog begins to carry and a lemony gentle permeates, the sound crystallises, as if being sucked into the uppermost reaches of the ashes and oaks. It’s the sound of a dashing stream, a babbling brook, although one made by stressed avian voices, excessive within the treetops.
Final month, these upright winter thrushes – fieldfares and redwings – fed systematically throughout plough and taking part in fields like a well-spaced military. Pulling a worm, hopping some paces, choosing a beetle, hopping once more, all travelling in the identical path till they reached the tip of the sphere, then travelling again in the identical method. However now, it’s time to go.
The burbling stream of aerial chatter meandering via the twiggy heights is the early spring equal of swallows gathering on autumn wires. But these harbingers of the winter-spring are congregating to move north for his or her summer season.
The mist thickens to rain. Because it falls and hisses on the boggy discipline, the birdsong is absorbed again into it. As I tug the winter-swollen 5‑bar gate shut, I spot a number of fallow deer slots pushed into the mud as they made an excellent leap over this extra apparent barrier than the flimsy fence.
