Tipping into Spring

Listen!

I stop on the path,

The crickets, can you hear them?

It is the 12th of April, warm and sunny, with deep blue skies and snow still on the peaks above. The path we are following emerges out of the woods and across the meadows where already the grasses are a foot high. Rivulets of dandelions stream down the hillside.                No
No... you mean you can’t hear them?
No, I mean it's not crickets, it's birds singing, too early for crickets, Robert insists.
I hear crickets and birds, blackbirds, mistle thrushes, chaffinches.

We climb on and up, past the wayside shrine, brushing aside the heavy branches of a glowing japonica that overhangs the path, absorbing the heat of the sun on the south facing side of an old farm chalet. Primroses still linger in the shade, cow parsley flutters, the strong scent of nettles and wild garlic mingle.

The young cows are out for the first time since the autumn, their mini size bells clanging fitfully as they try them out for size. We stumble on up the tree lined and rutted pathway, steep and straight, with rimmed sides a reminder of the old cart routes, and out into pasture. On all sides the thrum of crickets rises from the grass.

Crickets?  Oh yes, I can hear them now

 
Sightings:
Two herds of cows, mums and daughters
A flock of sheep with lambs
A lama, yes really!
Two wheeling buzzards
Cats hunting in the grass

Growing:
Primroses, oxslips and cowslips
Wood anemones
Violets and violas
Wild garlic
Lady's mantle
Wild strawberries