ONE swallow may not make a summer but don't knock it. At least it's a start and the first swallow in our area was seen at Guscar Rocks on the early date of March 14. It was just one of a host of signs of the dramatic change in season.
Spring has leapt on us this year with no gradual change from the long, cold winter. There have been two reports from Boy's Grave near Speech House of lizards, creatures that spend winter in hibernation. Any warmth will tempt them out but unfortunately for the two that were reported they were only seen when they made meals for a great grey shrike that has taken up temporary residence at Boy's Grave on its way north to its breeding grounds.
The shrike is worth looking for and easy to see. It is a blackbird sized bird but looks bigger because it perches very prominently and is pure white underneath and pearly grey on top. If you go to Boy's Grave and scan over the young Douglas fir plantation you will soon see if it's there.
The resilience of natural things after the long cold spell and the final sting of snow in winter's tail was quite amazing. Less than a week after the snow melted in February I saw a small tortoiseshell butterfly flying along a lane at Hewelsfield and basking on a sunlit wall.
But to be resilient you have to survive and many small birds perished in the long frosty months from December to February. There is a national exercise going on just now to map the distribution of birds. In winter the exercise requires observers to visit sites twice, once early in the winter and once at the end, counting all the birds they find. I visited three sites in November and February around Llandogo, Mork and Hewelsfield.
In November I recorded 33 wrens. At the end of February visiting the same sites, walking the same routes and spending the same amount of time I only found eight wrens. Probably the decline is even more marked than the figures suggest because by February when birds are singing strongly you find more birds because the song makes them easier to locate. I'd guess that on the Dean and Trellech Plateaus the cold winter has reduced wren numbers by about 80 per cent.
Flowers have reacted to the changing weather like coiled springs suddenly released. It was little short of incredible to see the garden covered in snow for two weeks and then within four days of the snow melting to see crocuses bursting into flower. The Wye Valley woodlands, in less than a week, swapped a dead white covering of snow for a living white covering of snowdrops.
Spring is the very best time of year for woodland flowers and in and around the Dean we have them in profusion. One after another they take advantage of the strengthening sunlight in the woods before the trees burst into leaf and create a canopy of shade.
Often a single species of flower will dominate a large area so they make spectacular shows. You have to be out regularly to see them as they don't last long. The snowdrops are already finishing but soon there will be daffodils in the woods round Newent. Then wood anemones, one of the frailest looking woodland flowers and one of the best indicators of an ancient woodland.
Wild garlic comes later and fills the air with a smell so strong that it invades the car as you drive past woodlands where it abounds. And finally in this majestic floral pageant bluebells will carpet many Dean woodlands in swathes of gleaming colour before the canopy closes and the ferns grow up to cover all. What a fantastic time of year it is!