Myfield in January
The track off the road is not very long. It is wide enough for a farm vehicle to travel down, and it would have to be a farm vehicle as it rutted and quite, quite muddy. If you wanted a rural opening to a Dickensian novel, then this could be it: mud, mud, and mud. The track is not that long and it goes sharply downhill. At the bottom there is a stream, an old clay pit, now water-filled and covered with trees, and the entrances to three fields.
As I make a controlled slide down the track, encouraging the dog not to pull, I am looking under the hedgerow for something very specific. The hedgerows, like most in the area, have received their short-back-and-sides. This is a necessary evil, the cost of labour long ago doing away with the traditional man in a flat cap, pipe in mouth, billhook in hand, quietly hedging his way around the fields. These days, a tractor with a rotary cutter can do in a week what the hedger would have done in several months. This year, the Covid-19 pandemic still at large and England in a third major lockdown, the farmers need jobs to keep them going and it looks like all the hedges are getting a haircut whereas in normal years there is some semblance of phased cutting.
So, the hedge is light, in places just a collection of main stems with a few surviving small branches. It is mainly hawthorn with some elder and other bits in it, and a tree, about halfway. Under the hedge are tufts of grass, yellow, brown and various shades of green and lords and ladies are beginning to show their conical young leaves.
But there is something special to be seen near the bottom, near the entrance to Myfield. It has been there for a number of years and is a sight to lift the sorest of eyes but whilst other examples like those at home have been showing their heads for two weeks or more now, here, towards the end of January, there has been little sign. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if someone had dug them up and taken them last year. So as I continue my way down, looking under the hedge, gently pulling the grass back to look for signs of growth, I see nothing. Memory leads to many falsehoods, not least of which is the mis-belief of where something is. This turns out to be one of those occasions. Further down than I thought, further under the hedge than I thought, there it is. Amidst the mud, the dulling grass, the bleak damp skeletal hedge, a clump of pure brilliant white joy. Snowdrops.
There is something about the combination of green and white that hits the soul and makes the eye see it as if for the very first time. The delicate stems, leaning slightly as they bend out from the main clump, the beautiful white flowers hanging on the end, droplets of early morning damp adding sparkle even though the sun has definitely decided it was not coming out to play today. If I needed anything to lift me, this is it. And I can’t not wait to get back home to say that I have found them, knowing how welcomed that news would be received.
Another day. There is a layer of snow on the ground, a clear blue sky and bright sunshine. I look out of my window and watch the birds come and go on the feeders. The temperature is still cold enough for the little droplets of ice and snow to stay firm to the branches of the continus and the bay tree in the garden as the birds flit from shelter to feeder and back to shelter.
Out in the fields it’s a similar picture. The snow is crisp thanks to the frost of the day and walking on it is almost pleasurable. I say almost as there is still a surprise awaiting the unwary as to tread on a patch of seemingly crisp snow could easily result in a foot quickly descending into a concealed layer of cold clinging mud. And the mud has been much more of a theme this month than the snow.
There are a number of fields that can be walked around here thanks to the landowner opening some Permissive Ways that when linked to the Public Footpaths provide a good number of variable walks. Myfield is one of the fields that has a PW all the way round though not many do. If you imagine a rectangle, the southern edge has a Public Footpath running parallel to it, and similarly at the northern end there is a green lane, a Byeway Open to All Traffic or BOAT. Enough of this but you can see how such a field can link with other walks. Except that until recently this has remained a field that has been little used except by a few locals and their dogs.
Myfield is one of my favourite places. It is not flat so you move from seeing everything for miles to seeing only a few metres. It has a ditch that is generally a winterbourne but more due to the lack of summer rain than any underlying geology. It is, as is most of the area, clay and parts of the field have a tendency to become waterlogged. It also has a number of different habitats that make it interesting to follow the flora and fauna through the seasons.
At the moment there is little to see in the way of flora. The cricket bat willows along the ditch have shed one or two branches thanks to the strong winds but they will not suffer and in some ways this makes the management of them for cricket bats a tad easier I would suppose. The trees on the north and east edges of the field are mixed and so there is some cover. The edge of the eastern plantation has a thick run of blackberry bushes that is not too tall but does run back quite a way in some places. Up to mid-December there were still flowers on some of the sheltered branches though precious little obliging pollinators flying out and about at that time.
The field is arable and has been for as long as I have known it and probably for a long time before that. Time was when you could predict the crop as the cycle turned but nowadays with the weather adding to the unpredictability of prices, market needs and lobby groups, it must be hard to decide what to grow, when and where. At the moment there is a cover of field radish. Planting something to manage the soil is now a regular activity especially since carrying out winter sowing has proved quite an expensive failure for a few years.
For the naturalist, an arable field can make it easier to see the trackways taken by passing animals and, if you are lucky, an opportunity to see what has passed by with footprints or droppings. Over the years I have seen muntjac deer, foxes, rabbits and hares. Badgers pass by at times, perhaps on their way down the hill to the village and the delights of people’s gardens. Birds though are the easy creatures to see this month. The short days apply as much to them as they do to us, so being out pretty soon after sun up improves the opportunity of seeing them carrying out their early morning routines as well. Later in the year, you’ll need to be up earlier to catch them.
In an adjacent field there is a small plot of specially planted bird-friendly plants, including millet. The landowner breeds pheasants so this may help supplement the feeding stations dotted around the estate but these strips are valuable for tits, buntings and finches which collect here in mixed flocks. One of the success stories for the area has to be the yellowhammer. Possibly the one call most people know - ‘little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese’ - though for years it has been on the Red list due to its population declining. Unlike many birds that were once common in the countryside, the population of the yellowhammer did not start to fall away until the mid 1980s and as increased intensification took hold of agriculture so the habitats for the yellowhammer decreased. Yellowhammer have always been around Myfield and the past few years their numbers appear to have increased and are often the dominant number in the flock on these strips.
As I walk up the field following the course of the ditch, the strip is to my left. Shielded by trees I can hear twittering but see nothing. A few steps on and I see the strip and at the same time they know I am there. As one they take flight, most knowing which way they are going, some unsure. They don’t go far, perhaps to a nearby hedge on another field edge. If I stand still long enough, they start to move back towards the strip. The usual stop is the electricity cable carried by posts that lean at ten degrees or so off the perpendicular. The birds gather and look, and occasionally preen. If I am lucky, they fall, in batches, back into the seed bearing plants. If I move suddenly, they go off, looking for another place for peace and quiet.
This month, when a lot of the seed has already been taken, they flit around in the hedges. A few steps on and a triangle of land left to its own devices offers shelter from the wind and a chance to stand and watch the movements amongst the branches. Yellowhammers are amongst the least shy birds here and will sit atop the hedge or on branches that come out near the top. As the season progresses, the male gets brighter in colour, showing off his suitability to any potential mate. Further in the complex of twigs and branches, chaffinches hop around, often moving along the line of the row without leaving the safety of the cover. Every now and again, a bullfinch pair put in an appearance as if to check that everything is going according to schedule. The male is all puffed up and who would dare to argue with that red bullish stance? Not his mate, who is present but further back in the shadows. The male chaffinches visiting the feeders at home seem to operate a similar patriarchal system, sitting on a branch keeping an eye on their mate whilst she feeds. Perhaps he has heard about the frisky dunnocks?
Back in the field, the mixed flock also has at times linnets and bramblings and, quite often, the reed bunting. The name is a bit of a misnomer but a most beautiful song. In the spring the male will happily sit on the tallest branch out of the top of the top of the hedge and sing and sing and sing. Finally, the other regulars of this group are goldfinches, a charm of which has occupied a particular stretch of hedge for a couple of years now. Unfortunately this has fallen foul of the motorised trimmer so time will tell if they will stay there. As the triangular patch gets covered with teasels in the summer, I expect that they won’t be too far away.
