Walking all the year round

Many people, especially town-dwellers — which after all is what so many of us are — have forgotten the art of listening to nature, interpreting her signals and understanding her cycles.

To do that you must go out into the country throughout the year, and see the effect that the seasons and the weather have on the fauna and flora of these islands. Every season has its charm in the countryside and its inhabitants. So come with us from the beginning of the year and let's see what we can find together.

January
In the city, this is a grey and muddy month as snow changes all too soon to a salty sludge ploughed up by the wheels of the traffic; cars rust, dogs look bedraggled and shake their muddy coats. But take a brisk walk in the park or better still along a country lane and the snow looks crisp and clean, the cold air strikes fresh.

During a cold winter the temperature hovers around freezing point during the day, dropping to below zero during the night. Looking at the skeletal black trees outlined against the sky, and the ground frozen hard, it's easy to believe that the world around us has died.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Beneath the thick mantle of snow the young crocus is already pushing its way through the snow. The hedgehog is fast asleep under his roof of leaves in a dark corner of the garden, and the dormouse is in his cosy winter nest. The larvae of insects and beetles are resting just under the soil, waiting for the spring to make their appearance in quite a different guise.

It's amazing to see how sometimes the most fragile-looking things in the garden survive the bitter cold. The violet and the daisy can drop their temperatures to 10°C (50°F). And the hardy yew by as much as 25°C below freezing (-45°F)!

If you have old trees in the garden, in severe frost you might find a Brimstone butterfly hibernating between the roots and the soil. It's a wonderful example of the vitality of nature in the face of harsh conditions — the sleeping butterfly has cooled down to many degrees below freezing; don't touch it or it will break, as it is extremely fragile at this stage, but in the spring it will wake up and fly away.

February
Although the weather is still very cold, the days are gradually getting longer and there are the first signs that winter is on the way out. The first tentative snowdrops make their appearance.

The catkins of the hazelnut tree blow in the wind, and if you look closely you can see small yellow clouds of pollen forming. The willow catkins also begin to appear, providing the bees with their first food.

Half way through the month the starlings mate and start to build their nests. If you have a nesting box in the garden make sure it is securely fixed to its support. An old one in a neighboring garden fell off the tree to which it was fixed but luckily the starlings and their whole brood survived the crash.

The fluttering and chirping of sparrows is a sign that spring is not too far away, though it seems hard to believe on bleak days. The female robin begins to look for a mate, which often results in vicious fights as each patch is bitterly defended.

February is often the wettest month of the year, hence the old expression "February fill-dyke".

March
Mostly it comes in like a lion with raging winds. The sap may be rising, but for people tired of the long winter and longing for the spring this is a time of impatience. We can hardly wait for the first signs — the buds on the chestnut trees which look sticky and swollen on mild days, but can shrivel in a harsh frost; the first spears of early daffodils. Underneath the soil each apparently dead tree is alive with hundreds of thousands of very fine hair roots, searching the soil for water which is drawn up through the trunk and into the leaves, where evaporation causes more water to be sucked up. It is the recurring miracle of the spring — the unfolding of the new leaves after the months of winter.

April
A "laugh and cry" month characterized by patches of bright blue skies interspersed with fleecy white clouds followed by short sharp showers of rain. As the snow has melted on high ground the rivers may look swollen and move more swiftly than usual.

This is the busiest time of the year for the birds. Sit quietly for a few minutes in the garden and watch them as they build their nests, picking up suitable material in their beaks — twigs, bits of straw, feathers, all are collected and flown to the chosen spot, perhaps deep inside a bank of ivy or in an overgrown hedge.

Some birds build better than others, but most nests are fragile creations and a stormy night can bring down the whole thing, complete with eggs.

This is the month when the fox cubs are born in the woods, their dens well hidden underneath large bushes like bilberry, sloe or wild roses. But the fox has many enemies, not the least of them man, so the cubs' chances of survival are not very high.

A spring walk through the damp woods will disclose a few fungi, good to look at but mostly poisonous, so leave them alone.

May
This is often the most beautiful month of the year, with the blossom out in parks and gardens, and the woods and fields a haze of young fresh green, even in the most industrialized of cities. The delicate blossom in white and shades of pink is a fleeting joy so enjoy it while it's there.

A striking new arrival in the bird world is the swift with its unmistakable high-pitched cry and its swooping flight as it hunts for insects.

If you disturb a heap of leaves you may come upon an innocent grass snake. An adult grass snake is about a metre long (just over three feet) with a dark grey-brown back, small black squares on its underside, and rows of black spots at the sides. Don't worry, it is completely harmless. It should not be confused with the slow worm, which is really a lizard without legs; it feeds on slugs and small worms, and is much smaller than the grass snake.

Most children interested in nature have watched tadpoles developing by stages into frogs. Sadly, it's now rare to see this happening in natural conditions. Where angling clubs have fishing rights, the frog spawn is eaten by the young fish, and where the water is too polluted for anglers the little tadpoles find it hard to survive.

June
As summer approaches and the roads begin to get choked with traffic, the motor car claims its annual toll of small victims — hares, rabbits, hedgehogs, squirrels, rats and birds are killed in their thousands on motorways and country lanes. But because nothing in nature is wasted, the victims in turn provide food for the birds of prey.

Buzzards, hawks, kites and peregrine falcons can all be seen hovering over motorways and ornithologists say that this is contributing to the survival of many species which a few years ago seemed in danger of extinction.

Waterfowl are not so lucky — their breeding places, where reeds grow on lakes and quiet stretches of rivers, are endangered by camping sites and new marinas. Particularly threatened are the common heron, the grebe and bittern. Only the wild duck is not affected by the change in the environment; so adaptable is the species that the female can be found nesting along canals or in artificial lakes in city parks.

July
The corn is high and the lanes are fringed with red, white and blue — the scarlet of the poppies, the deep blue of the cornflower and the delicate white of Queen Anne's Lace.

If you are driving at night, you may sometimes see the outline of a deer in a corn field, for at this time of year the corn fields afford better protection than the woods.

A field of corn is a small world, sheltering many communities of animal life. Fieldmice build their nests as much as three feet deep with three entrances for safety (or a quick exit) and storage rooms for grain.

Man has disturbed the biological equilibrium of the countryside with the use of insecticides and pesticides and the destruction of many of the smaller rodents' enemies like foxes, polecats and weasels. This means that the field mice can multiply almost without limit. At five weeks a female can have a litter; she has between four and seven litters a year, each made up of four to seven young — with such numbers it is easy to imagine the damage to crops.

August
Still high summer, but already there are signs that autumn is on the way. The days are noticeably shorter, and sometimes there is a stillness in the air which is a forerunner of autumn. You begin to miss the bird song in the garden. Most bird couples now separate and live apart until the next mating season. Some birds, such as the cuckoo, the golden oriole and the swift, have already left our gardens, anticipating the colder weather.

If you come across an ant-heap you may like to test the old saying that there is a connection between the height of the ant-heap and the severity of the coming winter. In actual fact, the size of the heap depends on the size of the ant colony which has chosen the spot. The construction extends to as much as two metres (about six feet) underground. The section above ground level has two functions; it absorbs the heat from the sun and passes it down below, and it helps to ventilate the underground passages — a kind of primeval solar heating and air conditioning system!

We have all seen at some time the worker ants running around busily with food or carrying their eggs. If you poke the heap gently with a stick, you will see the worker ants scampering off with the progeny to the safety of the lower chambers, defended by the soldier ants. The queen, who may reach the ripe old age of 20 years, personifies the future of the state. She is not perturbed by such skirmishes above ground, as she resides in the lowest chamber and is kept virtually as a prisoner.

September
If you want to find out in what order migratory birds fly off to warmer climates, go for a walk in the country where you may actually see enormous flocks of birds collecting. They will fly about for some days and then disappear. Their route to the sun spans continents and yet their radar system is infallible. Many birds migrate not to escape the cold but because their natural source of food dries up in the winter. Swallows live on insects, the cuckoo on caterpillars, and these are not available in winter. A warm autumn can cause the swallows to delay their departure, only to starve to death as the cold strikes suddenly.

Blackbirds and the common finch no longer migrate; they have found ways of surviving and finding food during the winter months in the immediate environment of man — the parks and gardens of our cities and suburbs.

October
The first frosty nights are a warning to the trees to make their winter preparations, as the roots will no longer be able to suck the necessary amount of water from the cooling soil. So a thin layer forms between the twigs and the stems of the leaves, which are cut off from the slowly flowing sap. The leaves dry up, at first one by one, but then in large numbers, and drop off. However, almost simultaneously, well out of sight the leaf buds are forming in preparation for the spring.

Under the trees and in the meadows mushroom lovers may still find some edible varieties like the chanterelle and the boletus together with poisonous fungi, like the devil's boletus. Don't pick or eat anything unless you know the difference.

October is feasting time for the birds and the squirrels, and hoarding time as well for the latter. The beech nuts are ripening and rain down in the woods with the acorns and the hazelnuts, and the squirrels are busy collecting enough food for the winter months.

Around the late fruit trees in the garden there is a buzz of late wasps, practically ready to follow the sweet fruit to your table! But the first night frosts will soon end the wasp plague. The queens will winter in a safe corner while the common infantry dies off.

November
Even this grey month has its beauty. Some of the russet leaves may still be hanging on; the woods are a carpet of gold and brown, rustling gently under your feet, and the landscape looks as if it's been drawn with a fine pencil in subtle tones of grey. This is bonfire time, the thin smoke rising from piles of leaves burning in the parks with the occasional fog to remind us of pea-soupers of the past.

December
As the year comes to an end the days are at their shortest and the nights are cold. This is the time to remember the wild birds and to put out some food for them, but don't overdo it or they will get too lazy to hunt for food and won't eat the insects from your garden.

A regular visitor to the feeding table is the bullfinch, easily spotted by his splendid red waistcoat; so are many others common birds, the chaffinches and the spotted woodpecker as well as the linnet, greenfinch and the robin. And if anything drops on the ground, watch the eager sparrows pick it up.