Thick snow crunched thick under our feet and the undulating hills around us glistened and danced as if in celebration of the beauty of nature.
In the near distance lay Glenquey reservoir and White Wisp Hill, and further away, Ben Cleuch, which stood like a proud sentinel over the flatlands of Clackmannanshire.
To the north-west the peaks of Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Chroin broke the horizon like jagged teeth, and even distant Ben Lomond could be glimpsed.
I was with a group of friends ascending Innerdouny Hill by Dunning Glen in the Ochils.
Due to the cold and the snow, there were few birds about apart from a lone robin flitting in among some plantation spruces and a high-flying raven.
But this did not matter, for the beauty of the landscape enthralled, cloaked in a carpet of sun-sparkled snow.
In many ways this dearth of wildlife was an illusion, for life abounded beneath the snow – the eggs and larvae of butterflies and moths, bees and beetles, which were like hidden beating hearts that would soon transform into vibrant adult insects come the spring and summer.
Nearby, there is a small hill pond where in just two or three weeks’ time frogs and toads will miraculously appear in their droves for their annual mating.
I recall visiting this pond last spring and becoming completely enthralled by the frenetic activity of these engaging amphibians.
Normally frogs emerge first from hibernation, with toads following a week or two later, but the warm spring weather had resulted in both species spawning in the pond simultaneously.
Once the mating season is over, tadpoles soon wriggle free from their jellified clumps (or strings in the case of toads) of spawn and will transform into froglets and toadlets by late summer.
On our descent from Innerdouny Hill, it seemed impossible to imagine that in just a few months’ time one or two sections of this track-edge would be carpeted in colourful mountain pansy flowers.
The mountain pansies here are intriguing because along the with the more typical, violet-coloured flowers, a few of the plants sport yellow blooms.
As for the birds, well soon there will be meadow pipits and stonechats sweeping in, as well as wheatears in the rockier areas.
By early May, the hills will ring to the hypnotic calls of cuckoos. With all these visions coursing through my mind of the glorious splendour of spring that was about to explode upon the landscape, we continued our descent under a sun-drenched sky.
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