February
The mild micro-climate of the Tamar Valley brings small sparkles of colour to drab hedgerows and verges – the celandine is a welcome bright yellow star, and snowdrops cluster round old deserted cottage garden walls in the woods. Hazel catkins shake their lambs tails in the breeze while the purple catkins of the alder provide a bright contrast to the dark greens of the wet woodlands in valley bottoms. Tawny owls are plentiful in local woods and are noisily calling to their mates at dawn and dusk, the earliest birds to start their spring breeding season.
February is not always the wettest month in this area and a prolonged spell of dry or frosty weather will see all of the livestock farmers in the district coming out with their muck spreaders, anxious to make room in the manure store after a long wet period when it is too wet to get out with their heavy loads. Manure spreading in wet weather on the steeper slopes of the valley can cause river pollution too.
February was once a peak month for the early daffodil market; there are still early blooms to be seen in sheltered spots on hedge banks where they were cast when the bulb fields were cleared, and in rows in the former terraced market gardens which are now covered in scrub and bramble.
Rosemary Teverson
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