Reasons for Seasons

Here we are, into the sixth month of the year, half-way through another year, mid-June and the Summer Solstice.

The weather is fine, the sky unmarked blue, the tracks dusty, the hay meadows dancing with Oxeyes and Buttercup and then clouds build and summer sky is split by lightning. All eyes are on the weather for the Solstice dawn, summer music festivals and sports meetings, all lining up to draw folk outside. A time of mid-summer joy and socialising but also a time to sigh, to think, to wonder over the months past and months to come as the year hovers and tilts and slips past the longest day. Time to contemplate the season and the height of the sun, and wonder at how quickly the time has gone, what nature has given and what is still to unfold.

Seasons that change in the blink of an eye as time goes by.

Which is your favourite season? - a question frequently asked. Well, that's a tough one, the answer is, all of them of course! As naturalists, nature lovers, an artist and a wanderer, there is beauty, curiosity and amazement to be found in all four, we love them all for different reasons.

So where to begin? Probably we would begin with Winter, the time that most folk would leave until last, shiver at the thought of and hope it is quick to pass. Samhain, All Souls, Halloween, Celtic New Year, whichever your name for the end of October, it has passed, and we are sliding into the darkest time, before the light returns. Yes, it is a time to tuck up and keep warm, to use the light wisely and economically, keep the home cosy and make the most of a quiet time to tackle indoor tasks and all those books with pages marked, unfinished. This is exactly what nature is doing, well maybe not the reading, but tucked up warm and moist, nurtured beneath the loam and leaf mould, are a million seeds, that, if you had a worms eye view, you would see are growing, shooting, rooting, ready to burst forth with new life as soon as the soil warms. Above ground too is a sheer beauty, a vision of evening horizons that blaze with brightness. Scarlet sunsets in a dozen or more shades created in the cold winter evenings. There are armies of bare skeletal trees all silhouetted, marching against the sky. Plain to see throughout the day, every species of tree with its own particular shape and form, be it thick trunked, round, solid and stately, high and far branching, arching, twiggy or top heavy, tall, thin and wispy, all cry out for the scratch of ink pen on paper to draw and record. Then there are the birds, winter bright birds, plumage ready for a spring mate or little speckled brown jobs that make up for size or colour with voice. Visiting Thrushes, with red flashes and iron-grey heads and freckled breast, join with the locals to clear orchard windfalls and feast on the berries of Ivy, and the thorn trees that will blossom white come May. Flocks of finches, striking orange and black Brambling, pink breasted Chaffinch, grass coloured Greenfinch and bold red-faced gold ones all gathered together, to seek out seeds beneath beech tree and spreading chestnut or swing through the high tops of Alder and Ash. The brown Wren and the Dunnock forage in dark corners, between pots and dry stems, Tits of blue and yellow, pink with long tails, gather in gardens, to swing acrobatically from generously gifted coconuts and seed feeders whilst the scarlet chested Robin sings messages of cheer beside your back door. At night there are velvet skies speckled with diamond fairy lights, a frost rainbow around a full moon or an oh so thin crescent between windblown clouds heavy with rain. If air pressure is high, clear is the sky, dawn will bring frost, there are those that are thin and burn off with whisps of steam and form mist in valleys at the first touch of the sun, and those that are thick, dressing every grass blade, branch and barbed wire fence in dense sparkling crystals that stay all day. After lunch there will be low sun and long shadows, bright cloud busting afternoons, or there may be rainy storms and tree tossing gales, watched from the window, causing rivers of rushing brown, light reflecting water and maybe a rainbow. And then sometimes, just sometimes there will be snow!

All of this wonder, beauty in its own way, comes before slowly, ever so slowly, the grey green spike of a snowdrop appears, from the dark earth, to signal the march forward, on into spring.

Then comes Spring - often it is hard to distinguish just when Spring begins, is it the first warm days, when the spring bulbs start to bloom, when we see the first fat queen bumble, that early Brimstone or hear the chiff of a Chaff, or is it the official Spring Equinox? It is a job to tell really as we are told we now have what everyone is calling 'climate change', certain signs of Spring seem to arrive a little earlier, birds nesting and flowering seasons beginning before we expect them due to earlier warm spells of weather. However, whenever it comes Spring is always welcome with its lengthening days, little by little giving more daylight hours. So just what is there to be so joyful about in Spring? So many people, if asked, will say that Spring is their favourite season, so cheerful after a dreary dark Winter, flowers and lambs and new life everywhere, which is indeed true, all that life that nature has been nurturing throughout those dark days suddenly bursting forth. An explosion of growth. Yes, the fields are suddenly full of tiny lambs, trees and hedgerows begin to green, that unique bright citrus green of delicate new leaves, birds sing louder in verbal territorial battles and the world becomes beautiful, just as beautiful as winter was, just in a different kind of beauty, softer around the edges. Although the new greens can be quite sharp and bright, the wild spring flowers seem to keep to a theme, a selection of colours that come together and follow one after the other. First, after the white of the Snowdrops and bright yellow Aconite come Celandine golden shining stars against dark damp soil, blooms that provide nutrition to huge round early Queen Bees. Then, blooming beneath tall trees filled with loud nest building Rooks, and Hazel bushes sporting dangling yellow catkins, the lemon yellows arrive, Primrose and Cowslips lighting up hedgerow bottoms and meadows, Daffodils, pale yellow dainty wild ones, looking like dappled sunlight across a woodland floor, to contrast with bold gold garden varieties, all glowing brightly. The yellows then fade into paleness, white wind flowers and Stitchwort, Wild Garlic and Garlic Mustard topped with hedgerows of Blackthorn, bringing the first bright sulphur yellow Brimstone butterflies and tiny white ones with orange tipped wings. The March wind tossed treetops are full of cheerful charms of Goldfinch, the hedges becoming noisy with bouncing Bluetit fledglings, the Oaks have flowered, short frilly green gold catkins and hosting tiny green moth caterpillars that have in turn fed all these noisy fledgling birds. As the white flowers fade, just for now, woodland floors and meadow edges suddenly become an altogether different hue, that of purple blue as the English Bluebells emerge to form that much admired traditional carpet of English woodland blue, that unique, nothing quite like it, exclamation mark of colour that heralds thoughts of Summer and holidays. Like the Summer Sea the tide turns, the blue receding, leaving behind a tideline of froth, a foam of white Queen Anne's lace, as the Parsley blooms and is crowned by arching boughs of May flowers from Hawthorn hedges. But even though it might seem to dominate lane sides it is partnered by Pinks, slipping gently into the pink season, Campion and Ragged Robin arrive with wild Orchids. Swallows and Martins are arriving, seeking muddy puddles in lanes and farmyards for the mud, caused by previous April showers, needed to build their nests in barns and under overhanging rooftops. The blue is now in the sky, the sun warming the air and if we are lucky, we will have heard a Cuckoo and Chiffchaff, Blackcaps will have begun to sing and during May screaming gangs of swooping Swifts have arrived around the town rooftops and we have suddenly found ourselves careering into another season.

Summertime and the living is easy – as the song goes, and suddenly all manner of colour and hues gate-crash our countryside. Tall spires of purple pink, swaying, bee humming, Foxgloves start to bloom alongside meadow edges, lane-sides and woodland rides where brown and cream speckled wood butterflies dance and jive in the dappled shade. Meadows that were once yellow with Cowslips suddenly shine once again, golden with meadow Buttercups and flicker with the brown and orange of Meadow Brown and Skipper butterflies, Tortoiseshell and red, white and black Admirals seeking meadow edge Nettles. Dainty, no bigger than your thumbnail, downland blue butterflies dance at your feet, as you climb the chalk hills, feeding amongst pink wild Thyme and ground hugging, creeping Trefoil. The wide blue sky is filled with cascading Lark song and Swallows swoop low between Rye grass and Orchids, purple globe topped Thistles and another shade of gold spreads through the ripening cornfields, speckled with scarlet as the Poppies bloom. Gradually the harvest shades spread across the land and the countryside becomes a flurry of activity and gathering in before the late summer storms build with the heat and lightning splits the sky to highlight the treetops as their dark summer greens begin to change into autumn russets and reds and children’s minds turn to conkers on strings and blackberry-stained fingers.

Finally, Autumn drifts in on golden mellow days, hedgerows once again bow with the weight of hips and haws and Swallows and Martins, the Swifts long gone, gather on barn roof and wire to await the moment when we shall awake one morning, and they will be but a fleeting summer memory. One of the first trees to colour is the Sycamore and the hedgerow Field Maple, changing their dress to reds and golds, crisp spinning ‘keys’ spiralling down on cool breezes, twisting and turning. Chestnut leaves spread brown fingers upon the grass below, resting among the split spiked cases and mahogany coloured shining conkers just waiting to be collected and stuffed into school blazer pockets. Oak trees ring with the cries of the Jay as acorns are collected and buried for a later cold winter day and flocks of finches forage beneath sturdy grey trunked beech. If you listen on a quite dark night, you may hear the ‘seep’ contact call of arriving Redwings who together with Fieldfares for the winter, join our resident Thrushes and Blackbirds in feasting on the scarlet haws in the soon to be leafless hedgerows. Woodland leaf strewn floor becomes studded with multicoloured fungi, and the air will echo with the bellow of the stag as he rounds up his ladies and stakes his claim. The lowering sun bounces and sparks through the golden tree canopy in the late afternoons, hats and gloves are retrieved from the bottom of drawers, wellington boots brought into the warm in anticipation of the first frosty autumn walks, puddles and piles of leaves. Autumn fruits will be collected, made into chutneys to store in glass jars, all preserved for the coming winter months. Fruit cakes and crumbles and mugs of hot chocolate to warm the hands and the soul.

Seasons, loved for so many reasons.

The sky is clearing now ready for a late hill climb and a pre-Solstice sunset, sleepily humming chafer beetles and zinging crickets, the silent wing of a ghostly owl out from the barn – if we are lucky – and sleep beneath an open window to wake with the longest day’s dawn to Honeysuckle scents and the song of the Wren.

We wish you a Happy Solstice Day and may Nature’s beauty and peace carry you through the second half of your year.

Words and pictures by Artist and Druid © 2023 unless otherwise indicated.