So What is Spring?
13th March 2024
In the UK spring represents the three months of the year when the Earths axis effectively tilts the northern hemisphere towards the sun. Days get longer and the sun rises higher in the sky. I can easily measure the effect of this progression by using the app which came with the solar panels on my house. Longer days and higher angle of elevation of the sun gives me more electricity generation (and greater savings thank you!). Mother Nature's solar panels are the leaves of her plants. As the intensity and duration of sunlight increase with the spring, so the leaves appear and photosynthesis gets underway.
It is generally accepted in the UK that spring corresponds with March, April and May. In Eire the first day of spring corresponds with the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc - 1st February. Next week’s Icelandic visitors to Wilderness Wood are still in the throes of Winter, at least until May.
The natural world responds to the rising temperatures and increased day length as spring progresses, but not based upon any fixed dates of our calendar. Phenology is the study of seasonal changes in the natural world – usually the first emergence of leaves and flowers, or the first flights of butterflies and appearance of migratory birds. With climate change these phenological events are occurring progressively earlier in the year. This can be a problem for migratory birds such as swallows, since they may leave their winter homes in Africa only to find on arrival that they have missed-out on the peak of insect emergence and may find the supply dries up before they have raised their chicks.
Many seeds lie dormant over the winter months and only start to germinate once the temperature and day length triggers their germination. Germinating seeds send their radicle (a starter root) down into the soil and their plumule (starter shoot) up towards the sunlight.
Deciduous trees drop their leaves in the autumn, withdraw sugars to their root system and go through a winter dormancy. When warmer spring weather arrives the tree pumps sap back into its above-ground tissues, using the sugars within to provide the energy to make new leaves and shoots.
Many trees flower before they produce leaves, so you will see Hazel and Willow Catkins, Blackthorn and Cherry blossoms before they produce their leaves. Many trees such as Oak or Ash are wind pollinated, so it makes sense to cast pollen onto the wind before leaves can get in the way of fertilization.
Woodland flowers tend to appear early in the year. You might reasonably expect them to appear in the summer, when sunlight is greater. However, woodlands are less well illuminated once the tree leaves appear, so Wood Anemone, Primrose and Violet flower as early as they can, using photosynthesis to provide the energy needed to produce flowers, pollen, and seeds. Bluebells flower a little later (Late April/Early May), but they have the advantage of stored energy in their bulbs. In the meantime the pollinating insects will be attracted to whichever plants are flowering at any given time.
We did an early spring walk on 15th February and found Bluebell, Violet and Lesser Celandine leaves, but no flowers as yet. We also spotted a Christmas Tree oozing spring sap, whilst our ponds were already awash with frog spawn. So lets see how things are looking a month on.
I intended visiting yesterday, but there was so much rain that I decided to wait a day before taking a few photographs of spring emerging.
My first port of call is Orchid Glade, where I'm delighted to find the eponymous orchids have started to appear. It is early days yet, but I count about 6 Common Spotted Orchids poking their leaves up through the soil. We wont be seeing their flowers until May, but I do find one of last year's seed heads. Each of the dozen or so seed capsule would potentially have contained hundreds of thousands of tiny orchid seeds, which on inspection all appear to have been carried away on the wind.
Common Spotted Orchid has appeared during the last 4 days
The seeds are so small because they don't take any food stores with them and rely upon a close mycorrhizal fungus association to ensure their germination. After several years they eventually develop an underground tuber (a bit like a bulb) which stores the sugars produced by the leaves. It is thought that the orchid then pays its 'nurse-maid' fungus back with these sugars.
A quick check of their Twayblade Orchid neighbours confirms that they are not quite ready to make an appearance, just yet. A number of other flower species are on the way though. The arrow-shaped spotted leaves of Wild Arum (Lords and Ladies) are thrusting skyward. Beware of these. I mistook a small leaf of one for sheep sorrel and found to my cost that my whole tongue and lower lip lost all feeling for a couple of days.
The arrow-shaped leaves of Lords and Ladies (Wild Arum and lots of other common names)
Two tree species are also emerging – Beech and Sycamore. Both have pushed their seed leaves (cotyledons) into the spring sunlight to enable them to start photosynthesising. These pairs of tiny solar panels quickly supply enough energy for the development of lots of true leaves, which will see the plant through its critical first year. In 300 years time they might be the size of 'Big Beech' in the lower wood.
Beech and Sycamore cotyledons - perhaps the start of 300 year old trees in Wilderness Wood
The Christmas Tree Field is a much more open area. It is not as sheltered as Orchid Glade, with no orchids evident as yet. However, the early spring sun here has encouraged Wood Anemone to flower already.
Wood Anemone - rain-drenched and slug grazed petals, but ready for pollination nonetheless
Exploring down the Cross Ride I am joined by Kate and Rainer who are on their way to see Jake, who is busy making charcoal in his new charcoal burner. This is an ideal time of year to dehydrate some sweet chestnut offcuts. It is called a charcoal burner, but it is really an oven. The loose wood is arranged around the outer part of the oven and a fire is started in the middle. Somehow he has to allow a fire to rage in the middle, without the chestnut catching fire. Magically he has already driven all moisture out of at least one pile of wood, turning it into bags of high quality charcoal ready to be sold for summer barbecuing. Charcoal fires burn very hot, sufficient in the past to smelt High Weald iron ore, but today more likely to be used to turn sausages into pure carbon.
Jake’s charcoal burner, a bag of finished charcoal, arranging the wood, a lump of smelted iron ore
My final stop is to check on the progress of spring down at the new ponds and wet woodland. I am happy to say we are proud parents of thousands of baby frogs, aka tadpoles. They have eaten their way out of their egg sacs and are gathered into a black writhing mass, each perhaps a centimetre long.
Tadpoles cling together in the palm of my hand
A few singleton whirligig beetles whizz across the surface of the pond, but they can't be ready to mate yet. Soon they will gather together in one place and commence their mini-dodgem-car extravaganza as they select a suitable partner. I suspect their courtship ritual is not done to the sound of whirlitzer music, flashing lights or high speed collisions - but who can say?
I can happily report that the newly installed 'Estonian Fence' still protects the ponds from small children and dogs and that the Wilderness Stream continues to flood the wet woodland below the ponds. Bluebell, Wood Anemone and Wood Sorrel are here in profusion, with the latter two already in flower. Perhaps my best find of the day is a fallen twig of Ash. On the twig are a few rather uninteresting flowers. However, they get my 'flower of the day' award because you rarely ever see them, because they are usually well out of reach at the top of the tree. As with Oak and Sycamore flowers, most people don't know that these trees have flowers in great numbers, scattering wind blown pollen for miles around. It is this tree pollen which so upsets anyone afflicted by hay fever at this time of year. I'm afraid that if you do suffer from hay fever, grass pollen will also have its turn come the summer.
Ash tree flowers don’t look much, but they are very effective at scattering pollen on the wind
Tadpoles, orchids, tree pollen - spring has now definitely arrived and life has again “gone forth and multiplied”. Spring has sprung, God is in his heaven and all is well with the world.
Hallelujah!
Follow me on www.leggingroundbritain.com, walking and reporting upon our amazing UK coastline. Next stop Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales.
After a year of writing this blog I’ve decided to self publish it as a slim volume. If you are interested in buying a copy contact me on davidwillhorne@hotmail.co.uk. Hopefully it might be available through Wilderness Wood.