The Dorset Year

Spring

Spring arrives with the catkins, lambs tail flowers of the hazel tree. In dark woods the ramsons flourish covering the earth with their dark, lush foliage and starry blooms, filling the air with their pungent, garlic aroma. The sea cliffs are full of birds, gulls and guillemots. Fulmars wheel and dash from the cliffs after there long winter sojourn. Now is the time for raising the next generation, the mated pairs must chose and guard a suitable spot on the steep rock, safe from the predators that may steal eggs and capture their young chicks. Bluebells flower from hilltops to woodland glade, in such profusion it is as though some immense hand had spilt azure powder over the land.

Summer

Flowers bloom everywhere. Scarlet poppies, lavender scabious, the yellows of evening primrose and mullion, a riot of competing colours threaten to overwhelm the eye. Thousands of pyramidal orchids cover the chalk downlands, their rarer cousins, the bee and spider orchids nestle amongst them attracting insect pollinators with the complexity of their dark flower heads. Deer suckle their young in the warm sun. Chicks fatten and mature as their parents work hard to feed them in preparation for the harsher conditions to come, readying them for their long migrations. On the heaths the pink and purple heathers flower, alive with bees frantically storing nectar for the long months of winter.

Autumn

The year begins to slow. The fruits of the bramble and blackthorn, blackberries and sloes ripen in the weakening sun. Scarlet rose hips cluster in the hedgerows alongside the wispy seeds of old man's beard. Small birds are leaving now, redstart and wheatear, heading south for the winter, the sweet fruits providing them with the fuel they need for their flights. The brown hedgehog seed heads of the teasel stand proud above the withering grass. In the woods stranger fruits begin to appear, umbrella headed fungi, some gray and pale, some scarlet and gaudy, all alien, hidden for the rest of the year.

Winter

As the days darken all is quiet, the growth and vibrancy of the year has faded to the muted tones of winter. Only the tough, thorny gorse still bravely flowers, as the country folk say, "When gorse is out of season, kissing's out of fashion". Dry bracken covers the woodland floor in a snug blanket of copper. However, this is not the end, only the beginning, nature sleeps, marshalling its energy before another great effort. As the first birds return to the sea cliffs, snowdrops push their blooms through the frost, braving the chill air, signalling the start of another year.