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Scout Scar: Season Songs

25/4/2018

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PictureWillow warbler on Scout Scar
Willow warbler in full song, his feathers ruffled by an April wind. A green woodpecker yaffles down in the wood below Scout Scar.  And skylark are in song flight.
 There are violets, forget-me-nots and fat purple ash buds that burst into green.  And wood anemones. The willow warbler is come and sings everywhere. The cuckoo is more elusive, but he should come soon.
I like the anticipation, and when spring migrants are settled in with tree flowers blossoming and the ground flora beginning to show then all seems well with the world.

Blackthorn flowers in white ruffles in the sunny shelter of stone walls, like the crest of  waves breaking over a stony shore.  A walking shrub, it generates by suckering and marches across the fell.  It's exposed to wind and weather up here on Scout Scar so blackthorn hugs the ground, growing prostrate over rafts of limestone clitter, dark knots of blackthorn that flower late.
Suddenly I was back in April 2007 when I was writing About Scout Scar.  I'd spied calocera, a bright orange fungus whose host is juniper.  On 21 April I heard my first cuckoo of spring and juniper erupted with calocera. I've never seen it so prolific.  
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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

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