At last, meteorological spring is almost within touching distance. For most of February I’ve found myself searching for reassurance that it’s on the way; the first snowdrop, recklessly early hazel catkins, a precocious celandine. Then yesterday reminded me of the folly of wishing winter away, of being blind to the subtle beauty of the season.
I’d come hoping to hear calls of the first oystercatchers and curlews, returning to the valley to nest. Anticipating the sight of that purple tint that develops in silver birches in Backstone Bank wood, when millions of tiny leaf buds begin to swell. Or perhaps smelling the faintly medicinal aroma of crushed new meadowsweet leaves. Not yet. But I did see something on that cold, grey, misty morning that stopped me in my tracks.
It was in a leafless hawthorn hedge, shorn with pitiless precision by a tractor-mounted hedge cutter, but decorated with one of the most luxuriant arrays of lichens I’ve ever seen. Much of the hedge was bare, apart from scattered yellow encrustations of common orange lichen (Xanthoria parietina), but short lengths were festooned, like overdressed Christmas trees, with countless dangling fronds of farinose cartilage lichen, Ramalina farinacea.
This valley offers high-quality lichen habitat, thanks to relatively unpolluted North Pennine winds and humidity from Tunstall reservoir, but why had these short lengths of hedge become so gloriously laden with this particular species? I recalled walking here last summer and finding the same sections defoliated by small ermine moth caterpillars that had sheathed twigs in their silken web. By autumn, the hedge had begun to recover, but maybe that leaf loss and interruption in twig growth had given wind-blown lichen spores sufficient opportunity to colonise those bare twigs, trapped by that web of sticky silk.
It’s tempting to believe that the beauty of this winter hedgerow was due to the arrival of a single egg-laying female ermine moth last spring, a serendipitous event in the endless, unpredictable cycle of life.
With spring imminent, it’s easy to overlook the subtle, pastel‑coloured charms of lichens, at their best on cheerless, dank winter days like this. They’ll soon be hidden from sight, cast into the shade by the annual riot of new spring foliage.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
