In leafless crowns of trees at the top of the bank, high above the Tees, a relentless wind clatters twigs and bends old branches until they groan. It is a relief to escape the constant buffeting and descend into the shelter of the river’s gorge, into still air heavy with woodland aromas of wet soil and decay. Ahead, a wren – furtive, wary, tail cocked – glances in my direction then vanishes among fallen leaves.
On one side of the narrow footpath, there’s a steep drop into the river; on the other, a low cliff where my line of sight is level with lichen-encrusted rock, tree roots, tangled ivy and an emerald carpet of mosses under elegant, arching fern fronds. Tiny, translucent, ephemeral toadstools digest dead leaves’ soft tissues, until only the skeleton of their veins remains.
There is so much life down here, even in mid-winter, nurtured by last autumn’s decomposing debris. It’s the season for new moss growth, stimulated by sunlight flooding through a bare tree canopy. In a two-inch tall rainforest, fresh shoots of hart’s-tongue thyme-moss, Plagiomnium undulatum, are weaving their way through filigree branches of tamarisk moss, Thuidium tamariscinum.
There is the promise of spring in the irrepressible energy of new foliage. Hard-tipped bluebell leaves, and stems of dog’s mercury bearing clusters of green flower buds, are shouldering aside matted beech leaves, straightening, reaching for the light. Wild arum, spearing through soft ground, unfurling its arrowhead leaves. Tentative runners of barren strawberry, inching across the soil surface. Some pungent sprouting wild garlic bulbs have been dislodged by rain, and delicate seedlings of herb Robert and goosegrass are everywhere, already well established.
Hidden somewhere here, in wrens’ world, lives a menagerie of springtails, worms, slugs, woodlice, millipedes and countless other small invertebrates.
This is where the green fuse is lit, where spring stirs, here on a woodland floor. It’s all so easily overlooked, underfoot. I had come, armed with binoculars, intent on looking for birds in treetops. I left with a belated new year resolution: to crouch more often, for a wren’s-eye view of life, despite these ageing knees that are becoming as creaky as some of those wind-tortured branches overhead.
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