A fox turns on to the track a few metres in front of me, like a car merging on to the motorway. It barely gives me a sideways glance. I follow briskly behind, enjoying the copper sheen, jaunty trot and full, white-tipped tail, held so low that it almost brushes the ground.
It’s dispersal season, and young dog foxes are on the move to find new territories away from the natal home. Soon, the breeding season will begin, leading to cubs about two months later, perfectly timed for spring. As foxes face many dangers, often killed young on the roads, and breeding only once a year, the imperative is urgent.
After a few moments, the fox takes an abrupt right turn, following a well-worn deer path back into the woodland. I pursue, ducking clumsily beneath branches, and cracking twigs beneath my feet. The fox quickly slips into invisibility among the burnished colours of fallen leaves, leaving me pulling brambles from my jeans and stumbling into a subsiding rabbit warren.
I’m right in the middle of a large patch of wild sweet violets. In spring they bloom, filling the air with soft vanilla scent, but this tangled mat of evergreen hides its own secrets. Close to the ground, hard to find, they grow winter flowers that will never open. I search beneath the heart-shaped leaves and, tricked many times by the tightly furled leaves, eventually find a pale green flower bud.
These forever-closed flowers are self-pollinating so that in cold weather, when there are no insects, the plant can still reproduce. The pollen, sealed in this hard green bud, fertilises the seed also held within. This self-pollination is known as cleistogamy, from the ancient Greek for closed, kleistós.
As the pod ripens, it splits open and releases (sometimes explosively) the tiny seed. It takes me even longer to discover a seedpod. Many stems look as if they’ve been nipped off at the tip, maybe by a hungry wood mouse. But I spot one, split open into three canoe‑like sections, each filled with tiny brown seeds.
The fox will be long gone by now, driven by that same urge to reproduce, no matter what the winter brings.
• 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
