When everyday brings new life

A STRETCH in the evenings and with it nature, although a little late, is busy again.

As my father used to say “as sure as God made little apples ...” and yes, the buds are swelling on the branches, crocuses and daffodils are opening and the birds are singing in the trees.

In fact, here on the “Riviera” of the south-west coast, we had a daffodil flowering in the snow in January. I’m told the same flower opens every year at this time. In contrast, the first of the wild primroses that bloom in the shelter of Abbeymahon walls and open earlier with each passing year, were two months late and I saw no flowers until mid-February, on Valentine’s Day.

In 2004, they opened on December 12, and in 2001, on December 24. As I said then, it was like meeting spring before Christmas.

Already, the industrious ravens had rebuilt last year’s nest on the cliffs of the Seven Heads, in west Cork, by February 9, a new, solid structure of heavy, green twigs well woven together and perched on the same ledge that had served them well since 2004, when they moved from a site nearby. Horsehair, of various, colours lines the cup (the moultings from the horses that graze the fields above). There may already be eggs, but I found it hard to discern. Protected from the prevailing south westerlies by an outcrop of rock and from rain by an overhang above, the eggs and chicks will be safe, whatever the weather, from a fatal decanting into the sea 60 feet below.

Meanwhile, the big, glossy-feathered parent birds perch on fence posts above the nursery uttering guttural squawks of discontent as one passes, objecting to the invasion of privacy, one assumes.

So far, so good, in this fortunate corner of Munster. Last week, en route to Dublin by train, we noticed the midland blackthorns were frothy with white blossom, beneath the glowering skies. On the way back, the view on the winter evening was dismal, with wet snow blown across the landscape, as if the poor bushes had given up their white flowers – not that there was ever enough blossom to whiten out the view as the snow did. The plains of the Curragh seemed especially miserable in the fading light. I remembered travelling across them as a very small boy in the cab of a lorry driven by an uncle, with another uncle and a drover beside me, all crammed in, with diesel fumes and cigarette smoke, off to Dublin, from Maryboro – now Portlaoise – to a mart to buy cattle. And I especially remember the carpets of lapwing in their thousands covering the frosty grass on either side of the road, hunched in the pre-dawn cold, and the first rays of the winter sun coming up over the edge of the world and touching frozen Kildare.

Here, as the days grow warmer, I see small flocks of redwing – the survivors of the tragic inward-migration of early January – busy in the fields. Some of the blackbirds that gathered daily around our yard, at that time when it was a feeding station for up to a hundred birds, have remained. They know a good thing when they find it. Also remaining with us for almost a month, is a hen brambling. A pretty little bird, very much like a cock chaffinch, but not as vivid. And, thank the gods, the hen blackcap – the bully – [Outdoors page, January 11] has long since moved on.

A friend of mine, with blackcap problems at his bird table, wondered if the cat could be induced to target the blackcaps – he has a pair (double the trouble) – and leave the other birds alone. But he didn’t really mean it. They are pretty little birds and he was optimistic that if he placed the peanuts feeders far enough apart, the regular birds would eventually outfox them – if that’s the right word. From now on, every day will bring new life. To paraphrase Dylan Thomas, we had the Deaths, now we have the Entrances, and, as gravel-voiced Mr Armstrong sang so poignantly, “ ... what a wonderful world.”