A Windy Winter Walk

It wasn't a named storm which has become the modern fashion, yet as I stepped into the woodland the wind surrounding me was what could well be described as briskly wild. And cold too. Yet the wind was the reason for a winter walk.

It seems like a very long time since the sun had shone, though in reality it had been only a week. The blustery conditions today made restless the weather. Bright sunshine yes but buffeting gusts similar to those experienced in the drying winds of early March, those winds herald the approaching Spring. Perfect weather for a winter walk in woodland, an engaging experience with the frisson of a blustery day to stimulate the senses. 

On a windy day there is a point where when approaching and then entering a woodland the sound changes. Exposed in the open countryside before stepping foot between the trees everything is being orchestrated, birds fly quicky surfing the air, or are hunkered down waiting for calmer conditions. Gusts radiate across water rippling its surface with dramatic often random shapes. Individual trees and shrubs sway and flex alarmingly with each passing gust. Gusts which caresses the skin, which detecting the cold air stimulates action. Such wild days are not ones for idly wandering about outside, these are days with purpose, with energy. There is a distinctive sound too. 

The now bare branches allow the wind to pirouette through unhindered and in doing so there is a low roar across the landscape, reminiscent to the sound of a wild sea terminating it's force on the shore. That sounds is omnipresent, inescapable yet produced by an invisible energy we have no control over. But listen; as you cross from outside to within the woodland the trees not only envelopes you, but ameliorates the sound. Those audible changes are subtle but also discrete and noticeable with each step we take into the wood.

All too soon that constant white noise quietens in the background, until when, even after only a few strides into a wood, that surrounding noise is hushed, to be replaced by focussed specific discernable sounds. An ominous creak here, a sharp clash there, urgent clattering overhead  as the tree canopy collides and sways high up and into one another. The strongest gusts still penetrate the wood at ground level, maybe half heartedly flicking dead leaves along the floor, however that aerial energy is sapped, reduced to no more than a gentle breeze. And that brings a calmness. Once deep within that transition into the inner wood there is a different sensual experience to enjoy, a feeling of solitude, of heightened senses, of inside.

Deep into the wood the near silence and calm air heightened what bird call there is at this time of the year. A mixed species of tits acrobatically forage through the higher branches chattering noisily communicating as they rove by. Blue tit, great tit and long tailed tit work as one through the branches. Down below robin, wren and blackbird forage in the quiet still air or fly low and quickly between the undergrowth. A scolding repetitive  call reveals a wren and it's displeasure of your intrusion into its world, Out on the wetter areas by the lake tufted duck and gadwall find a sheltered area, while nearby a blue tit makes quick work of a bullrush seed head. Nimbly gripping the stem it pulls away tufts which drift away in the breeze like confetti. Turning, a movement on an oak trunk reveals a treecreeper quietly but with purpose looking for food amongst the bark. All the while overhead the seeping call of redwing seem to accompany the breeze, yet the birds themselves are rarely visible if we look for them, they have called and now elsewhere.

In a quiet corner four bullfinch forage without sound amongst the young willow stems. Two pairs, the males resplendent in their red and black plumage are stunning but the female is worth a second glance. Their subtle coordination of browns and blacks offering suitable camouflage against the winter trees. Then a commotion overhead quickly reminds me of activity outside the wood. A flock of jackdaw wheel and flutter overhead, maybe a hundred birds, more even, noisily calling to each other viewed high above the swaying canopy, before swooping down at speed and out of sight, pre roost activity. That edgy movement reminding us that while enveloped by calm conditions within the wood, without, the wind continues unabated.

Woodland restricts our vision too. Our eyes turn in from the horizon to more intimate signs near by. The bark of mature birch is fissured and cracked with verdant moss wrapping the trunk. These short lived colonising trees are vital to a woodland ecosystem. Recent storms have felled a few. They lie horizontal waiting fungi and deadwood invertebrates to recycle once living components. A sign that while we may think of woods as permanent never changing features in the landscape, in reality they are in a constant state of renewal. Trees grow from seed, they mature, they grow old and then, possibly during a winter storm they die and fall back to earth, decomposing, their life-time of nutrients allowing the next generation to flourish.

All too soon during these short mid-winter days the light begins to fade. Not yet three o'clock and a half light predominates deep inside the wood. That half light enhanced the sense of solitude within a winter woodland. A feeling of intruding, as if nature is in stasis and we should leave it to its mid-winter slumber.  

But it is not. Look down, even in mid December new growth is already emerging. Fresh green arum tips are poking through leaf litter, herb robert and other umbelliferous plants (now renamed but umbelliferous to me) are emerging. A patch of nettle pokes up between its own mini forest of last season's dried stems. Higher up honeysuckle shows new leaves unfurling and willow buds are swelling, not long before catkins unfurl. Insects are scarce but not absent, a ground beetle scuttles by as if to confirm their presence.

Suddenly the cronk of a raven signals the walk is nearing its completion. It's been almost two hours, time seems to move at a different pace within a winter wood.  Soon the confines of the calm inner environment will give way to rejoining the buffeting wind outside. Emerging from the wood the cold wind jolts us back into reality. A strong gust momentarily checks our progress. We're back outdoors again, back in the wider world where horizons become distant. We're once again walking with purpose against the elemental force, the noise is intensifying. The contrast is remarkable. Those prescious quiet moments spent walking within the wood quickly become a memory, until the next time of course, when the wind blows and restless, we feel drawn outside once again.