Gibside: It’s that time of year

March to May 2019

Just the day before, Ranger Helen had watched three red kites squabbling high above Gibside. Engaged in a dog fight (for want of a better metaphor), the two males locked talons and plummeted into the trees, risking serious injury in pursuit of a mate. Late March: it’s that time of year.

In the Ice House Woods blackbirds scuttled and a couple of wrens flitted around in path-side shrubs. Wood anemones planted in their thousands here last autumn are pushing up their first leaves among the first signs of wood sorrel and cuckoo pint. Dog’s mercury, lesser celandine and yew are in flower. A nuthatch rehearses being noisy and appealing. At a distance trees still look wintery but, here in the woods and along the Avenue, they too are unfurling their leaves in readiness for the start of nature’s year.

Nuthatch

Wood sorrel

Wood anemone leaves emerging

Wood sorrel flowers

Wood anemone in flower

Although the grass had barely had chance to grow, somebody was playing with a new lawnmower; a machine that looks like a hybrid miniature of a bin lorry and combine harvester – a combined harbinger of spring, perhaps.

The new lawnmower in action

In the air above the Octagon Pond, a buzzard, red kite and kestrel all appeared at the same moment separated vertically and horizontally by some invisible air controller. It was a photo lost to a slow camera and a slower wit. On the pond, coots were preparing to nest. In the pond were frogs, frogspawn and knots of toads. It’s that time of year.

Toads "tying the knot"

Five weeks on, on a rainy day that ought to have kept us at home, we wandered Ice House Dene Woods once more to check out the wood anemone. It was cold - exceptionally cold for May. There was a gentle breeze that nevertheless allowed the rain to fall straight down in a tolerable fashion, pleasant even. We walked on to the riverside by Ladyhaugh. Ranger Phil had seen otters here recently, but not today. We were cheered, though, by the sighting of a dipper mid-stream and a roe deer grazing in the open – made bolder with the rain keeping visitors and dog walkers away.

Bluebells on the edge of Ladyhaugh

Horsetails in Lily Pond

Hawthorn just coming into flower

We wandered on making a mental note of plants and birds, and stopped off in the dry of the bird hide to write down what we could remember over a sandwich and cup of coffee. Bedraggled woodpeckers monopolised the feeders. Below, a young chaffinch was being fed by mum. It’s that time of year.