A heavy frost and a clear blue sky. The world has come alive. A song thrush sings by the houses, a mistle thrush throws his voice from a treetop, geese call overhead, but most gratifying of all, a flock of 50 or so lapwings swirl like blown smoke over the moors – bunching and stringing out, twisting and turning. It seems we all like a bright blue sky and a warm rising sun. Even the starlings call like curlews, beckoning their return.
Anticipating spring? Perhaps, but I doubt they are anticipating anything – simply revelling in the unfoldment of a world that is never still. And I sit here feeling my heart in my chest, willing that bubbling curlew call to descend from the sky very soon.