Local Patch 5

At this time of year, there is something lovely about that special pale yellow that our native plants and bulbs produce. I am thinking about the beautiful primula vulgaris, and our native daffodil (narcissus pseudonarcissus). Cultivated species are bright and bold and have their place in our gardens. I love to make up pots and tubs that celebrate their zingy colours. But to come across a clump of native primroses or daffodils is gently and quietly wonderful.

Local Patch 4

Our walnut tree shows its leaves much later than the elder and birch around it. Its bare twigs are brittle and crusted with lichen.  But at this time of year it is full of small birds. Something attracts them.  And yesterday there were three types of finch feeding: Gold, Green and Chaffinch.  It is a long time since we had a Greenfinch in the garden - welcome back!

Their local patch

A weekend on the surprising Isle of Man, and a chance to explore someone else's local patch.  We walked the coast paths from Peel Hill on the spectacular western edge of the island. The sun shone endlessly. Linnet, skylark and wheatear accompanied us as we climbed. Chough tumbled and wheezed in the celeste-blue sky, there was a single swallow and the cronk of raven. The gorse was coconut on the air. A pair of peregrine hunted along the cliffs, sending the nesting birds swirling out to sea. There were puffins in the bay; fulmar and guillemots turned on the breeze with the gulls. In Peel Harbour, black guillemot paddled among the boats.

We were visiting dear friends, so there was nonstop talk as we ate and worked together, putting the world right and catching up the years. They were generous with their home and time and lives. They helped us pull our first lambs into the world, gently sharing their skills, making it all look so easy.

Of course a weekend was not enough. We can't wait to go back!

This local patch

Situated between the Mendip and Blackdown Hills, there is an area of rare beauty and even rarer habitats. The watery land is full of history and mystery. The ghosts of Arthur and Alfred rest here, and at Glastonbury, Joseph of Arimathea’s staff miraculously took root, and created a place of popular pilgrimage.

The Somerset Levels and Moors are approximately 650 square kms of precious, swampy wetland, bi-sected by the gentle Polden Hills and criss-crossed by workaday rhynes. Settled by ancient people who made trackways through the marsh and lived together on the slightly higher ground, most of the land is barely above sea level. It is a place reclaimed and shaped by man; the great monasteries at Muchelney and Glastonbury first started to manage and drain it. Today the water levels are controlled with a complex system of sluices, drains and dykes. In the winter, fields become shining lakes as the water is held, collected and redirected.

The Levels are vitally important for many species of wildlife and are the site of one of Britain’s unmissable wildlife spectacles: the starling murmurations. At dusk, in winter, hundreds of thousands of them swirl above the reeds in shape shifting flocks. They gather in small strands until the heaving mass is roiling overhead. They move in mysterious harmony before dropping to roost in a chattering single motion.

The RSPB controls my favourite places on the Levels. I love the tiny, intimate reserves, such as Greylake, where a short boardwalk leads to a perfect hide. Harriers hunt above the reeds and swans sit tight on their shabby nests as the soft light leaves the day behind. The sedgy fenland, where peat has been cut for centuries, is a safe stronghold for otters and breeding, booming bitterns. The flooded pastures attract important flocks of waterfowl in winter and spring brings migrating hobby hawks who feast on dragonflies before finishing their journeys to the North. In 2010, the Common Crane was reintroduced, after an absence of 400 years. These tall, fairytale birds are learning the secret places of the reeds, their unmistakeable cries and wheeling flight are once again joining the storybox of the land.

It feels like a land to belong to, it is worth exploring. The narrow lanes are sunken and shrouded with hedgerow, or arrow straight above a causeway. Either way they pull you deeper in. Across the flat, flat land, the spires and towers rise up: a solid church in every village. Pollard willows with short trunks and spiky hair, march along the waterways. The withy stems are used to make fine baskets, woven furniture and trendy willow coffins; it is a traditional Somerset craft and not yet a lost art. Old apple orchards line the roads, their gnarly branches full of mistletoe globes. We buy farm cider, sharp and strong and cloudy, from ancient barrels in old barns. It tastes of pith and pip; it tastes of the land.

Local patch 3

The spring equinox has passed and this weekend we have put our clocks forward and jumped into British Summer Time.  We are looking forward to longer evenings and an opportunity to be outside at the end of the working day. It was a perfect Mothering Sunday, with a celeste-blue sky all day and warmth in the sun. We walked in the Quantock Hills.  Wills Neck is the highest summit (1261 feet). From the top you can see as far as the Brecon Beacons and over to Dartmoor and Exmoor. There is a long, slow pull to the meadows at the top and there was a bright, blustery breeze which tore our voices from our mouths and quickly chilled our cheeks. The woodlands were full of primroses and the first Chiffchaffs were shouting their arrival from the trees.

Back home, I spent a long time searching the skies for further swallows and am beginning to doubt my early (10 March) sighting.  But that joyous, swooping flight is really distinctive, isn't it? I couldn't wish one into the sky today, but over the sunny, tumbledown wall on the edge of the garden there was another herald of Spring: a first Brimstone butterfly. Sharp as lemon against the terracotta bricks, he was unmistakable.

Local patch 2

All of a sudden, the countryside is colourful again.  New leaves and new grass are citrus bright. There is a green haze on the trees, and blossom and bloom compete to be noticed: pink, cream, yellow, purple, orange, red, blue.  We walked the field paths around NT Lytes Carey on Saturday.  Lots of mud remains but the blustery air was soft with Spring.  As we turned the corner of a large field, a patch of clear sky was lit by bright sunlight and the first skylark of the season was tipping his liquid song into the sky.  It's a reminder of better days and a sound full of great promise.  What joy.

Local patch 1

I saw my first swallow over the garden on Friday - 10th March!  Last year, the first one I spotted was on 16 April.  It didn't stay around and I haven't seen another one, but I know that house martins were recorded by visitors to RSPB Ham Wall last weekend.

Can we believe in Spring again now? It has happened in a couple of short weeks.  The daffodils are in full flood, I have seen my first sweet violets, there are primroses on the banks and we have blossom, finally.  The blackthorn was followed by the pink cherries, and in the village this morning: two magnolias - glowing. Tiny leaves are bursting from buds; the young plants in our new native hedge looks like they might thicken up a bit this year.

The pond that we dug and filled last autumn was immediately adopted as a bathing spot for the clouds of starlings that cross the house on the way to and from their feeding and roosting spots. The house sparrows love it too. A surprising number of invertebrates have already made a home there. On Sunday we found a Great Diving Beetle.  We can't wait to plant it up and get that water clear.

Birdsong in the garden seems to get louder every day.  The male blackbird has reclaimed his singing tree, a silver birch above the pond.  The walnut tree is being visited by hordes of rooks who crash around, breaking off the brittle twigs and dragging them back to their shaggy stick piles in the high trees by the Church. The nest boxes in the garden have been explored, I think at least one is already being used by blue tits.  So far, our owl box remains empty though.