Christina Rosetti’s poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter”, which became a beloved carol, paints a typically harsh picture of nature at this time of year:
“Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone”.
Accurate as this can be, it is not the whole picture of the natural world in these dark and cold days, though we may not take this in when we stride out into it, perhaps for the first time in ages. These midwinter walks are also often seen as a healthy penance for over-indulgence, and risk missing potential pleasures.
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While the sap has indeed sunk in many trees, by no means all of nature is hibernating now. In fact, there are even floral displays. Watch out for the vivid pale yellow ‘lamb’s tail’ catkins which are beginning to festoon hazels, one of our commonest trees. Each one contains many male flowers, which will shortly open up to scatter pollen to the female flowers, exquisite tiny pink structures that are just beginning to emerge.
This is one of those cases when flowers appear before leaves, and you just might find another example at your feet in a hedgerow. Coltsfoot is a bright yellow flower, easily confused with a dandelion, that springs up in February but sometimes appears early, and always long before its leaves. Another yellow flower definitely in blossom now is the lesser celandine, though it will not be in its full glory until the spring.
Bird life is also very active during the winter months. Finches move incessantly in large feeding flocks, robins still sing, and you may find ravens already gathering nest materials.
But the greatest vibrancy of bird life right now is on our estuaries and wetlands, where peak numbers of wildfowl and wading birds search for food. Catch a flock of hundreds of sandpipers flashing steely grey and silver in their kaleidoscopic flight displays, and the idea that winter is a dead season will evaporate.
So you may find your penitential walk is full of unexpected promise, and your own sap rising, if you pay attention to what may be all around you.
