Scout Scar on the cusp of spring

Scots pine and pattern of anthills, Helsington Barrows

A skylark calls amongst the crags on Kendal Race Course, a skylark lit by the sun, his crest erect.  Another sings in display flight.  Pattern of bright white cumulus clouds across the sky, and visible wind-sheer.  Not a con-trail in sight , the skies silent.  A preternatural peace.   This is how the world was, this tranquillity.  

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​In the skies above St John’s Church, Helsington,  a flock of fieldfare and redwing is calling.  Soon, they must migrate to Scandinavia.  A moment of transition: skylark come to the fells to breed,  fieldfare and redwing fly north.  We are on the cusp of spring. There's a woodpecker drumming, green woodpecker calling. And a curlew.  ​Violets appear, and the flowers of barren strawberries.

​The first flowers of blackthorn appear, each spring a shrub in a sheltered spot has the first flowers. .  Blackthorn has a walking habit and over the Scout Scar ridge there are rafts of dense and low blackthorn, throwing out suckers,  on the march, and over the limestone clitter too. In some weeks there’ll be a mass of white flowers.
The cloud-scape is constantly changing, cloud gathering.  After an early morning chill the day is warm and still.  And beautiful.
Down at Wells Garth the mossy banks are full of fresh flowering dog’s mercury.   Water gushes out of the limestone, down the rock-face, into a beck that runs down to Park End Farm.  Veronica becabunga grows in the beck.  The only beck on Scout Scar.  There’s a lush bank of pink and white comfrey spilling over a wall, and japonica.
Down at Barrowfield Farm the first lambs are in the in-by pastures, close to the farm.  Spring comes later with altitude.