Yesterday was a beautiful day – a sharp north-easterly wind softened with sunshine, the bright green of newly leafing trees, the white flowers of cherries, the yellow carpet of cowslips, golden studs of dandelions, the snow-white of blackthorn blossom along the uncut hedgerows, all adding to the joy that is an English spring.

And with it, every member of our small team here at Sun Rising seemed to come up to me beaming with exclamations about having seen their ‘first peacock butterfly’, ‘first orange-tip’ or ‘three brimstones’. With International Earth Day tomorrow, 22 April, my aim was to present here the first Sun Rising butterfly photograph of the year, but the wind was too high, and today the rain came in, just to remind us that this beautiful greenery needs regular watering.

My favourite picture of yesterday is this one: a small bundle of feathers that is a bluetit, flying through the wind to the birdfeeder, with such determination and courage, the wild cherry blossom blown sideways, the blue skies above, only confirming the context as spring.

Bluetit at the Birdfeeder, Wild Cherry Behind

The purpose of Earth Day is to raise awareness of the natural world and the crisis we are now in, and most positively to remind us that we can all contribute to the solution. At Sun Rising we are doing our best to make a difference. We have many new plans to improve specific habitats for birds and butterflies this year, taking another step with the creation of more wildflower meadow.  But it’s easy to forget that the simple things are important too: putting out seed for the birds like this bluetit, now feeding chicks in a nest somewhere along the hedge.  We can all do that, and in doing so we can literally save lives, little bluetit lives.  What a wonderful thought on a rainy day.

In order to keep the integrity of the nature reserve, it is important that every plant at Sun Rising is native, including every bulb.  That’s why we don’t allow any garden daffodils, not the sweet little Tete-a-tete and Jonquilla, nor the big blousy golden cultivars, nor the pretty new orange ones.  All our daffs are the old wild one, the one that is truly native to these lands, Narcissus pseudonarcissus.

Lenten Lilies, our native daffodil

Because it flowers at this time of year, the old name is Lenten lily.  In fact, this name has been recorded as far back as the sixteenth century in Elizabethan England.  Other versions found around the country are Lenticups, the Lent rose, or simply Lents.

Some families do plant garden daffodils at Sun Rising, and one of our tasks at this time of year is to dig them up!  It’s a ‘tough love’ job, essential but always done with sadness.  Knowing which is which isn’t usually difficult: cultivated daffodils commonly have much greener leaves, the wild ones being soft grey-green and slender.  Now and then, we have to wait until the daffodil comes into flower, then the garden varieties show their colours. The wild ones have a lemony trumpet with six creamy petals, and as such manage to express a beauty, grace and sunshine while never being showy.  Perfect.

Here at Sun Rising, each month we carry out a flora survey. We take four or five different areas and habitats, these changing in succession year on year, so we can maintain a record of how habitats develop over time. Most of the months of the year, this is simply about noting what is flowering or fruiting, while in the high summer months we record every plant, including the trees and shrubs. Today was our February survey.

All around the natural burial ground, snowdrops are now coming into flower.  Some are in groups that were planted some time ago and are gently multiplying, which is wonderful.  In other areas, especially wet and clayey areas, they tend not to last long, but replanting with new bulbs is worth the joy of their little flowers.

The other plant that is giving such delight at the moment is the wild primrose (Primula vulgaris), and I think they look never better than a the tatty old leaves of the woodland floor.  Here their other name of ‘fairy cup’ seems even more apt.

Primrose in Leaf Litter

These pale yellow flowers can be seen at any time from December to April, at which point the surrounding vegetation usually hides the last of their blooms.  Pink primroses are usually cultivars and hybrids with garden primroses, not fully native, but some believe the pink may be a genetic variant.  Most non-native primroses are obviously not wild, coming in a variety of brighter colours from white to red: when a family plants one of these, we do remove it.  However, frequently the hares and rabbits will eat them first!  We think these garden cultivars must be much tastier, the wild ones having evolved a natural bitterness.

As some of the first flowers, primroses are important for the first insects that are emerging.  The name derives from the Latin, prima rosa, the first rose.  I’ve seen honey bees on ours, and a rather slow and chilly bumblebee. If butterflies that hibernate through the winter, such as small tortoiseshells, awake on unseasonably warm days in February or March, these early flowers are an important source of food.  My sense is that they feed us too, nourishing the soul when we’ve had enough of the cold winter greys, shining with their soft yellow light.

For many years, there were large birdfeeders near the entrance of the burial ground which we filled twice a week with a rich seed mix.  These attracted a wide range of birds.  The more common great tits, bluetits, chaffinches, robins were joined by less common bullfinches, greenfinches and marsh tits.  There was the occasional woodpecker having a go and, in the muddy grass and leaves under the feeders, there were pheasants, yellowhammers, wrens and blackbirds.

Of the remarkable visitors were the tree sparrows, and with a healthy population of breeding tree sparrows at Sun Rising, we were keen to support this locally endangered bird.  However, house sparrows began to flock in.  These slightly larger birds quickly outcompeted the smaller tree sparrow, and a few years ago, in an attempt to dissuade the former, we removed the feeders.  Sadly, nonetheless, we lost our tree sparrows completely.

Bluetit at the Birdfeeder

All attempts to encourage them back have so far failed, and as winter approaches, we have taken the decision to return to filling the large feeders by the south car park, as well as putting back the field feeders at the other side of the grounds, in order to support the wider bird populations. We’ll see whether the house sparrows return to dominate.

It always takes birds a little while to find a new feeder, and the first to come are the bravest.  I have found this to be, without exception, the bluetits.  Extremely fast flyers, they can afford to be courageous, but their little size also means that they need to be brave.  Birds don’t lay down many layers of fat, as mammals do, simply because they need to remain light and agile in order to fly.  In fact, small birds, like bluetits, may only ever have enough energy stored to last a single night.  Which means most of the day they are looking for food, and they can often find it before the larger birds.

During the summer and autumn, there should be plenty of food at Sun Rising and in the surrounding fields.  But with frosts beginning, and the temperatures dropping, it’s wonderful to be able to support the local bird populations again.

Last week we completed the second of four full surveys of memorial trees that we carry out each year.  Of course, being at Sun Rising most days, we are always looking out for anything unusual, but the survey days provide time to focus so nothing is missed.  We are mainly looking at saplings less than 10 years old, but also cast an eye over the older trees.

One of the key tasks of the May survey is to remove tree guards.  This happens when a sapling has grown sufficiently to cope without any protection from wind and weather.  It is usually when the tree is around 7 or 8 years old, when the main trunk is around 3″ in diameter.  This year, we removed around 45 guards.  I always get a sense of the newly unwrapped trees feeling rather naked and exposed – but they soon toughen up.  The guards are packed up and sent to be recycled.

Each year there seems to be one or two species that struggle.  Last year it was the Wild Cherry (Prunus avium): weakened by a wet winter and saturated soil, followed by drought, in 2020, the cold spring of 2021 gave them a hard start, but this year they are thankfully looking fine.

Viburnum Leaf Beetle Damage on Guelder Rose

2022 is the year for our Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus) to suffer.  The problem is Viburnum leaf beetle (Pyrrhalta viburni), known as VLB.  This native creature can be quite a pest.  Both caterpillars and beetles are eaten by ladybirds and lacewings and insectivorous birds, and in the past decade since first seeing it at Sun Rising we’ve left the trees to manage.  Very few have ever been badly affected.  This year, the VLB has been way out of balance, though, affecting nearly half our eighty memorial Guelder Roses, and completely defoliating eleven.

Whether it has been the climate, the weather, or a population that has gently grown after years of being left alone, we don’t know, but with the help of some sturdy volunteers we have been squishing the little caterpillars, one by one.  Those that have been defoliated at this time of year should have a new flush of growth, with healthy fresh leaves.  But the trees can’t do that every year – hence our stepping in now to make sure that any future problem is less severe.

Nature is always a marvellous challenge.  As I stand back and look at the areas of growing woodland, where birch, oak, cherries and other trees that we planted 15 years ago are now standing 15 to 20 foot tall, my confidence rallies.  It’ll be OK!

If you have a Guelder Rose planted as a memorial tree here at Sun Rising and you’re concerned, do get in touch.

At this time of year, the wildflower meadows are beginning to look lush with the rich growth of early summer.  At Sun Rising, that green is now sprinkled with bright yellow Meadow Buttercups, and the soft pink of Ragged Robin.  But amidst these is also the deep and vibrant pink of Common Vetch.

Common Vetch in the Wildflower Meadow

The botanical name for this beautiful little wildflower is Vicia sativa.  The sativa tells us that it was once more widely cultivated (from the Latin sativum), and indeed, although the peas are fairly small, they are high in protein.  Though toxic when raw, well cooked these native peas were readily eaten by our ancestors.  In some parts of the UK, they are still known as ‘poor man’s peas’.

In more recent centuries, it has been grown not for human consumption but as a valuable animal fodder.  And as a legume, it is still sown as a green manure, especially on allotments, small holdings and in organic farming.  The plant creates little nodules on its root that house, protect and feed a bacteria called rhizobia, which in turn coverts nitrogen in the air into a form the plant can use, allowing it to create proteins.  If the crop is not harvested, but dug back into the earth, these little root nodules naturally enrich the soil.   As a crop sown in agriculture, a common name for it is tares, although technically the word can refer to a number of different vetch species.  In some dialects, a tare can simply mean a weed!

At Sun Rising there are two points in the year when it is an absolute joy: right now, in mid May, when it brings those glorious violet pinks to the green of the meadow, and again at the end of the season in July, when its black seed pods are drying in the summer sun – and at the slightest touch they will burst open with a crick!, its black peas flying off into the grass.

Today, 22 April, is Earth Day.  More grandly, the United Nations calls it, International Mother Earth Day.  Organisations all over the world are using the day as an opportunity to focus human minds on the problems of climate change and habitat destruction.   Furthermore, as earthday.org remind us, we are all increasingly affected by the current state of the world’s business climate and political climate – as well as the ecological climate.  It isn’t just weather systems that are becoming wilder, more unpredictable and destructive.

However, being bombarded with yet more frightening facts and pessimistic possibilities can make us simply want to curl up, close our eyes, and grasp for a little denial, feeling there’s really nothing we as individuals can do.  Particularly when already coping with loss, illness or pain, what we actually want to say is that we’ve just had enough: we can’t cope with more stress, negativity and fear.  But the critical reality is, we all do need to play our part in facing this crisis.

That’s where the value of positive stories shines.  Knowing that there are places, however small, where nature is gently thriving, strengthens the heart.  Such places are nourishing, encouraging, just when we need it most.  At Sun Rising, the cowslips are always a radiant reminder of an England before intensive farming, but they also hum with positive possibilities.  Big bumblebees, the first hoverflies and busy, round beeflies are investigating each bright yellow flower.  Newly emerged butterflies, so smart and colourful, are now dancing over the meadows and hedgerows, orange tips, speckled browns and green-veined whites.

Cowslips and Spring Leaves at Sun Rising

As well as cowslips, all over the natural burial ground, on graves and around the memorial plaques, there are snakeshead fritillaries, dandelions and primroses.  As buds on the trees break open, new leaves are unfurling in a dozen hues of vibrant green.  The cherry trees are blossoming in snowy bursts of white, the crab apples with delicate deep and pale pink.

Spending time amidst the beauty of nature isn’t a turning away from the world’s crises.  Moments immersed in nature’s peace, filled with birdsong, really do calm the soul, allowing us more easily to find our feet, to breathe gently, and head back into our lives refreshed and refuelled, ready to face the reality again.  Inspired, we are ready to take responsibility, to be accountable and do our part.