LITMIR.BIZ

      Glendoher, 4 February

      After a seeming unending series of rather dull, overcast days with a damp mist hanging in the air, January morphed into February, and spring finally arrived in Glendoher. It always begins with a quietness. At the end of winter there is often a lull, a calm, as nature composes herself and works behind the scenes for the next great thrust. I wonder, was it this quietness that led the Romans to dedicate 19 February to Tacita, the goddess of silence? There is an acute feeling of expectation in the gardens and in the woods and on the hills, the buds on trees and shrubs are almost bursting with tightly vacuum-packed herbage and ready for their big moment. During the last weeks of winter there are occasional ‘pet days’, with an hour or two of warmth borrowed from June, as if testing is taking place, or an assurance is being given, a ‘trailer’ of what is to come. I feel that if I listen hard enough on these quiet days, I will sense the hum of the boundless power that is being held in check in all nature, awaiting the signal to burst gloriously forth in colourful rebirth.

      Sometimes it seems to me that it is the widespread outbreak of birdsong that makes the first announcement of the arrival of spring. The blackbird that I have heard practicing on all those dark winter mornings is now note perfect, and its mellow tunes can also be heard in the early dusk. The song thrush announces its arrival in the area, and becomes daily more melodic as the days lengthen. My mother used to tell us, as children, that if we heard a call that sounds like ‘cherry-dew, cherry-dew, cherry-dew’, it was probably a thrush.

      At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

      In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy unlimited;

      An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,

      in blast-beruffled plume,

      Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

      – Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’

      Glendoher, 6 February

      Today is startlingly bright and sunny for a change, and there seem to be a lot of birds competing for the same territories. Five or six blackbirds are constantly on the go in the garden, and long-tailed tits in our Himalayan birch are almost becoming a common breakfast-time sight. Teresa saw a flock of waxwings nearby in our housing estate, and was particularly enthused about their brilliant yellow-striped tails and their crests.

      I had to go into Dublin city this morning, and I walked almost a mile along the Owendoher River to reach the bus stop at Rathfarnham. Up until the end of the nineteenth century the waters of this fast-flowing mountain stream were harnessed to run many mills in the area. There was a paper mill and a linen mill at nearby Edmondstown, a mile or so south of Glendoher, and the same water that powered them continued northwards to serve another two paper mills at Newbrook and Bolton Hall, and a woollen cloth mill at Millbrook, which occupied a site just across the field from our back garden. Today, however, water mills only exist in place names, and like many small rivers, the Owendoher is ignored, which has allowed it to become a secret wilderness corridor that, shrouded with foliage, slices through the concrete and tarmac and noise of suburbia. For most of the stretch that I walked to Rathfarnham, the surface of the water was three or four metres below the pavement, curtained off from it by an old stone wall and a thick cordon of ivy-clothed trees and shrubs. Along the way, however, there are places where the wall is low, and in wintertime, with no leaves on the trees, those who are interested are afforded a view into the watery oasis. The river is lined with ash, sycamore, chestnut, oak and conifer trees, unmanaged by man, some dead and hollow, and others leaning over and trailing liana-like creepers in the rushing waters.

      Today I saw that the chestnut trees are already sporting their big, sticky buds, and I noticed a couple of escapee apple trees opening delicate green and pink blossoms. Ivy is rampant along this wild corridor, where it reigns unmolested. Although hated by gardeners, it is a most valuable natural resource, providing secluded nesting locations and food for many bird species as well as habitats and late nectar for myriads of insects. It is neither parasitic nor invasive, and it takes its nourishment from its own roots, clinging to rather than penetrating the bark of trees it uses to climb to the sun. Sometimes, however, if it is not controlled, it can so weigh down elderly trees that they are vulnerable to being up-rooted by winter storms.

      In places the short stretches of riverbank were covered with the pale green disks of butterbur and escapee flowers from gardens, and buddleia bushes and fuchsia, which we can expect to bloom as the year goes on, were plentiful. The birdsong along the river this morning was continuous, with chaffinches and wrens leading the chorus. Some years ago I recommended to the local authority that they build a pedestrian boardwalk along the river to allow people to access this wonderland. A small section was indeed built, but then they ran out of money and the work has not proceeded. I, for one, am glad.

      Our garden at Glendoher is never without the robin’s tinkling song, and the redbreast seems so much more tame at this time of year. The naturalist Richard Jefferies, in his final essay before his death in 1887, could have been talking about the robin when he wrote that ‘the bird upon the tree utters the meaning of the wind – a voice of the grass and wild flower, words of the green leaf; they speak through the slender tone. Sweetness of dew, and rifts of sunshine, the dark hawthorn touched by breaths of open bud, the odour of the air, the colour of the daffodil – all that is delicious and beloved of spring- time are expressed in his song.’

      It is strange that what sounds serene and beautiful to us is really, to a rival male bird, a forceful diatribe of threats, boasts and warnings. Birdsong is a multi- functional operation; it is used to attract mates, intimidate enemies, stimulate an urge to build nests and, of course, certain call notes, like the harsh click-click-click of the wren in the nearby bush, are specifically to warn of danger. The experts tell us that birdsong is controlled by the sex hormones, and is an invaluable tool in the setting up and maintaining of a territory. Singing, for a bird, actually takes the place of fighting – what a marvellous concept! When two rival birds with adjoining territories are proclaiming their supremacy, it somehow seems to be a rule that they don’t sing together. When ‘our’ wren comes to the end of his vehement scolding song he pauses and, sure enough, his nearby rival wren, perhaps fifty metres away across the field, gets his turn to shout back!

      However long the winter might seem to us today, imagine how it must have been in early times, a deeply anxious time and a matter

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