On the brink of Spring

And plans are afoot

As we slip into the second half of March, Spring remains beguilingly elusive. There has been a punishing wind, the skies have been a flat, unyielding grey and the rain often relentless, but in spite of these unpropititious conditions, I have been determined to continue to go out drawing as often as the weather allows and have discovered, that if you look carefully, there are chinks of springtime activity to be discovered.

When one afternoon last week, the clouds parted unexpectedly, I didn’t tarry to gather up my usual kit, but put my small sketchbook and a few pencils in my pocket, tucked my folding seat under my arm, and set off for an adventure.

A Buff Tailed Bumble Bee goes searching for a home

I would stop for a few minutes when something caught my interest to pause and draw, but even for this short time my mind immediately quietened and I slowly became aware not only of the trees in front of me, but the gentle buzz of activity around me. A pair of Blue Tits bobbed above my head, picking out nest material, and I caught the yaffle of a green woodpecker swooping across the heather behind me.

At my next pit stop, I saw a cluster of ladybirds encrusted around the fading oak apples and at my feet the perfect round hole carved into the mossy cushion, which I suspect might belong to a shrew? ( but do let me know if you can identify its occupant.) I also heard the drone of a buff tailed bumble bee lumbering about amongst the gorse and rooting in the fallen oak leaves for a prospective home.

All of these tiny shifts towards spring I might easily have missed had I not paused to draw.

When I began sketching at the Ling a few months ago, I had no plan in mind other than to develop my skills at drawing in the landscape and taking note of what was happening around me.

But as the weeks have progressed, my affection for this place has grown. Getting to know it so intimately has also meant that I have grown conscious of the changes in recent years and reflected on how its landscape has shifted. Until twenty or so years ago, it was managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, and though it is still designated common land, it remains privately owned and is now managed by the local council. It used to be a place where cottagers would graze their sheep, though this declined after the war, and now it is a place for predominantly dog walkers who enjoy the ancient paths that crisscross the land.

Inevitably I have talked to those who have lived all their lives at its edges and their recollections have made me sensitive to its fragility and vulnerablity. Even as recently as twenty years ago, nightingales could be heard in the woodland, wheatears would nip among the gorse, along with meadow pipits and reed warblers. But these are no more.

Though I often sit quietly for hours, I rarely see birds, other than jays snaffling acorns or buzzards being mobbed by crows over head. But there is also a sense of uneasy neglect on the Ling. The designated car parking areas are pitted and parking now spreads along the verges, wearing away plantlife.

And it is the plantlife that makes it so special. It is an SSSI site and while the glory of the hawthorn blossom in spring is spectacular, it is in August, when the crimson sheets of sheep sorrel mixed with the livid mauve heather, that it is at its most glorious.

So what was borne of an amorphous desire to draw what I saw in this place ( its proximity being a significant reason for choosing it) has showly shifted into a mission to record it more formally - to chart its course over a year, to draw, paint and photograph what I see. Such places are so easily taken for granted and the creeping changes that occur can be easily missed.

Fragments of its history remain- the old Mill, the workhouse, remnants of a First World War shooting range, an old swimming hole, now silted up and barely noticeable, but such places are unrecorded and their memories are being lost. While the lives of the cottagers and residents were documented in fascinating detail by the Reverend Cobbold in the mid-Victorian period, the Ling itself is barely mentioned.

Climate change too is having an impact. It has been the warmest, and wettest, February on record. The dips and craters mined long ago by cottagers for turf and sand, have filled with water and oaks and hawthorn sit stranded in great pools. The Waveney river, which was diverted to a canal along the Ling’s northern edge, has spread to a flood plain and has now weaved across the body of the Ling cutting it in two.

So many of us have places like this on our doostep that we value, and yet we think will remain the same. Wortham Ling is not a landscape of great grandeur, but it is precious, both to me and the local community. I hope by formally recording what I see and love, and by discovering more about its history and ecology, of which I have heard tantalising glimpses, I will help preserve what makes it special. It is a huge privilege to get to know intimately a place such as this and over the coming months I will be occasionally sharing this new adventure and my discoveries here. I do hope you will join me. I would love to hear too of your precious places in the comments below.

Flower of the month

In my (currently very) damp garden, violets thrive and it is worth getting damp knees to sniff their exotic scent. These modest blooms hide their heads and the debris and fallen leaves need to be teased away to reveal them. I love to think of John Clare doing just the same.

March Violet - John Clare (1793 -1864)

Where last years leaves & weeds decay
March violets are in blow
I'd rake the rubbish all away
& give them room to grow

Near neighbour to the Arum proud
Where dew drops fall & sleep
As purple as a fallen cloud
March violets bloom & creep

Scenting the gales of early morn
They smell before they're seen
Peeping beneath the old white thorn
That shows its tender green

The lambs will nible by their bloom
& eat them day by day
Till briars forbid his steps to come
& Then he skips away

Mid nettle stalks that wither there
& on the greensward lie
All bleaching in the thin march air
The scattered violets lie

I know the place it is a place
In spring where nettles come
There milk white violets show their face
& blue ones earlier bloom.

Something to listen to

As we patiently wait for the earth to face the sun again, here are three peeks into Spring. Only a few episodes of Richard Mabey’s “Mabey in the Wild” are on BBC Sounds, but these are to be cherished. Broadcast in 2011, and just 15 minutes long, I cannot think of a better companion to the beauty of the Wild Daffodil, the Snake’s Head Fritillary and the Wild Rose. As he lives very near here, I find his descriptions of the wild roses he discovers especially enticing and will go roaming in search of them as soon as the days grow warmer.

Thank you for your company here. Your support of my work is greatly appreciated and do please share or subscribe if you have enjoyed what you have read. I look forward to seeing you again in a couple of weeks.

Narcissi WP Milner and Catkins