,The fields have been awash with the yellow flowers of Daffodils. This brings the yearly sightings of the people carriers and vans lining the lanes delivering the pickers in the early hours of each morning. It is back breaking work, carried out in bitter and harsh weather conditions, and the workers are wrapped in layers of waterproofs, shawls and sometimes blankets. The scenes are eerily reminiscent of Van Gogh’s drawings of the Potato pickers from over 100 years ago.   However, these are not a local workforce, it is now foreign workers who toil the earth for our benefit.  And I wish we would put the fields to growing much needed food, rather than daffodils. Our food systems are woefully inadequate when it comes to sustainability and food securty.

As expected the weather in February continued in much the same vein as January but without any additions of named storms. The rain fell daily and the land was soggy and slippery with mud. The temperature was mild but sunshine was in short supply, giving February the title of the 4th dullest on record. But nature was already busy with much of the work taking place in secret and underfoot during this month.  The spoils of this work becoming ever clearer as the month progressed.

The mild weather, though welcome, did bring confusion in the plant world and vast colonies of Primroses came out very early. ‘Primrose day is April 19th’, according to the 1912 publication ‘Wild flowers as They Grow’ by Corke and Nuttall. At the time of their writing, the April date was considered, ‘the zenith of the Primrose season…it is usually taken as the representative flower of the Spring. March sees it beginning to bloom; April and early May see it in full perfection in copse and hedgerow’. By the end of this February the hedgerows and our lane were covered in swathes of Primroses in full bloom, alongside the Daffodils and Three-cornered Garlic plants.  As I said, there was confusion. There were also Lesser Celandines out in full bloom, which is a regular visitor in February and it sounds like that has been the usual pattern for some time as again, according to Corke and Nuttall this plant ‘is the earliest of Spring flowers and its golden starry blooms break the dreariness of the woodlands even before the Winter is over’. And to round off on the subject of the early blooms on the land, our Magnolia tree produced magnificent large flowers all through the month. Although it is a variety of early flowering, because we suffer from the Westerlies, any bloom on any of our trees can be, (and often is), battered and lost to the winds. This tree generally flowers in May and has only ever had a handful of blooms. Not so this February – the best display of flowers since it was planted 8 years ago

The birds were also making their presence felt.  The Rooks were out in good numbers and their weird cawing was heard mmorning and night as they venture out to feed and return home to roost on their dusk and dawn flights. I think they are often joined by a few Jackdaws. The Woodpeckers are already busy in the woods and their drilling can be heard regularly and sometimes a bit too incessantly.  Plenty of Robins and Wrens singing their hearts out – always lovely to hear.  The occasional Blackbird and now Skylarks are also regular visitors. I’m not sure whether they have increased in numbers or whether I have got better at identifying their song. Or, let’s be honest, whether the Merlin Bird App has increased my awareness by screaming out ‘Skylark’ every time I record down near the woods.

As the month closes I am feeling the lack of sunshine along with  most inhabitants of Cornwall. We are  weary of wet and grey and are ready for the warmer days to arrive.