March already, winter has lost its grip and now we can look forward to spring. March may have the odd bad day and I note from my diaries that there is usually a snowflake or two in April, eight times out of ten to be precise.
February fill the dyke did not live up to its name, lets hope for a bit of rain this month or we could look forward to water shortages during the summer months.
The weather all over the world is changing, maybe it could be global warming or just global change. This old earth has seen it all before, the Sahara Desert was once a forest as was the part of England we live in. The dinosaur once roamed over the very ground we inhabit, then the sea came in, only to retreat from Pett Marsh five hundred years ago. Now the experts are predicting that the sea will return to flood the lowly Romney Marsh.
I noticed in the paper the other day that there is a vast cliff face in the Canary Islands poised to fall into the sea and cause a tidal wave that will travel across the Bay of Biscay at 500 miles an hour and swamp the coastal lands through the English Channel. I say the experts are wrong, no wave could travel that far without dispersing its energy. Perhaps we would get a surge that could cause some local flooding but there would be little force behind it. Our houses are built of bricks and mortar and would withstand the ripples.
It will be interesting this year to see how early the black headed gull gets its full summer plumage, already, on the last week of February, they are moulting. A blue tit has taken up residence in one of our nesting boxes and is defending it from others that take an interest. Sparrows were fighting for partners in late February. Daffodils are budding. Its a good job Easter is early this year or there would be nothing left of them for the kids to gather under Winchelsea Wood, rather like we did when we were young although the kids of today are never seen playing in the woods as we used to do. I suppose they give their mothers a CD or similar for Mothering Sunday.
Peter phoned me the other day and told me that the Cuckoo had crossed into Spain from Gibraltar and so is on his way here. Roll on April, my favourite month of the year.
Jimper
March 2005 Issue of “Rye’s Own”
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