Today is the spring equinox, and the first official day of spring in the Netherlands.
In this lovely Northern land, seasons have so much more meaning than in countries closer to the equator. You feel each new season with all your senses, in sharp contrast to the last one. The transition from one to another is so fast it makes you blink with disbelief.
Only three weeks ago, night temperatures (and even some daytime ones) were still below zero. Ice still covered the drains in the fields and part of the canals, and frost sparkled on the morning pavements and railway tracks. Rain in the evenings sometimes reverted to snow, which lightly coated the rooftops and bare branches on the trees in our lane. On the canals and rivers, ducks and coots still flocked together.
But even then, something was happening. The snow no longer lay for days – it quietly melted away. The bare branches began to quicken, blushing faint pink as the sap flowed. Buds formed. Blackberry bushes lining the pathways had been cut back to ground level in the autumn by council workers – now they sprouted long barbed tendrils. The browned off grasses began to green, slowly at first and then with a rush. Bulbs forced their green leaf-spears through the turf. And the birds’ behaviour began to change. They had behaved politely, with perfect manners, in the winter freeze. A colourful mix of great tits, blue tits, sparrows, jays, red robins, tree-creepers and chaffinches had shared the seeds, nuts and fat-balls we put out for them. A harmonious multi-racial, multi-species society feeding together at the expats bird cafe. Until three weeks ago, that is, when we saw the first signs of bickering, the odd flash of temper.
Three weeks – that’s all it takes. Now, daytime temperatures are in double figures (seventeen Celsius on Friday) and the last two nights lows were thirteen degrees. The buds on the branches are showing leaves. Rabbits feast on the grasses. The bulb spears that emerged three weeks ago, like timid green pennants on a battlefield, now wave the multi-coloured flags of their flowers – snowdrops and crocuses are the first, but the daffodils and tulips will not be too far behind them.
The change in the birds is just as abrupt. Gone are the table manners – gone indeed are any manners other than those of courtship. There is inter-species total war. The tits drive the tree-creeper off the insect block, the blue tits scrap with the great tits, and the robin no longer dines with the others. On the water, the great flocks have dispersed as ducks and coots seek their own little piece of the river. Against their own kind, all species battle for dominance in the pecking-order, seeking the prizes of the best mate and the best territory. Winners are already courting, dancing and pairing up. It’s spring. It’s the mating season.
Game on!
Tags: Birds, canal, flowers, Ice, Jay, snow, spring, weather, winter
I am thinking that an inspiring Holland travel book must surely be on the cards.
We are thinking of a book on bike journeys in NL for the less fit older traveller – do you think there would be interest in that?