The rich melodies of warblers are ringing out from the hedgerows and woodlands of Clackmannanshire in a vibrant celebration of spring, and there is no more beautiful songster than the blackcap.
The warming weather in the Wee County – albeit erratic at times – has brought out good numbers of insects, most notably queen white-tailed, buff-tailed and tree bumblebees that buzz low over the ground as they search for crevices and holes to make their nests in.
It is a close race as to which of our spring migrant birds will be the first to arrive in the Wee County.
A soft piping whistle, followed by another – a flute-breath that drifted across the air like a whisper in the breeze. My eyes scanned the tangled branches of trees at the back of my Clackmannanshire garden, and I soon spotted a pair of bullfinches.
Dollar Glen is like a temperate rainforest, the trees thick-laden with verdant mosses and dripped with feathery-leaved ferns and lichens, making it a wonderful place to linger and reflect.
A cock chaffinch fluttered up into a sycamore ahead as I made my way along the edge of a woodland burn near Dollar.
Spring light has a sparkling lustre that is absent in the depths of winter or during the height of summer.
Early morning in woodland by Tillicoultry and it was still dark, the sun requiring another hour or so until it brimmed the horizon. Yet, nature was stirring.
By a tangle of alder roots on the opposite bank of the River Devon, a black-furred scurrying caught my eye.
"The grass is spangled with thy silver drops," wrote the 18th century poet Charlotte Turner Smith in a tribute to the snowdrop, while another contemporary described this wonderful winter flower as “a beauteous gem” that springs forth “amid the bare and chilling gloom”.
