Nature

At first, it was bright with sunshine, fine and spring-like.

By 10.30am, it had changed, with masses of cloud racing in from the west.

The low sun was soon hidden, bringing a sudden chill to the freshening wind.

Dark cumulonimbus clouds over to the north promised rain.

No wonder that this month is named after the Roman god Janus, the deity shown with two faces - one looking back to winter, the other forward to spring.

With the freshening breeze and lowering temperature came a flock of redwings - planing down to the field at the back of this house accompanied by a small crowd of bustling starlings.

We looked at the redwings for white wing flecks, a mark of first winter bird, and also for the darker back-plumage which denotes Icelandic types aside.

There was neither, and, though the birds lingered, feeding in the grass tufts, or perched in our old and wretched damson tree, they were very nervous.

Eventually, both starlings and redwings fled over the skyline, disappearing abruptly down to the valley beyond.

We have seen plenty of redwings in the last few days - but no fieldfares.

Usually both species come here with a rush, in mixed flock accompanied by a scatter of missel thrushes.

Seeking them, we took to the fell country by narrow walled road and tortuous lane.

Constantly, we looked for sign of life, or seasonal change.

The countryside seemed deserted.

We saw no sign, no bright harbinger of spring.

No stormcock (missel thrush) voiced his first few spring notes against the cold wind.

No sign of pollen-laden hazel catkins, not even a peewit - tumbling or otherwise - over weary and sometimes sodden meadows.

Nothing but carrion crows braving the bleak, russet fells.

However, there was plenty of other evidence of the year's slow turn on the lower fields, a brighter green than ever against a monotone of fell and rock under a grey and increasingly lowering sky.

The evidence of the year's slow change? On the backs of numerous Herdwick sheep wintering down on the flatter, greener land below the wintry fells.

Animals enduring their first winter, most bore coats of dark cocoa brown wool.

A closer look revealed that some Herdwick wool was weathering out on flank and belly, bleaching slowly to the dour grey of the adult ewe or ram.

More fitting to the wintry scene was a lone buzzard, circling high over the broad estuary and the flat marshy fields alongside.

Or perhaps an even better example was the sight of a male sparrowhawk bursting out of cover onto a terrified group of small passerines.

It drove them forward, into the birchwood, but whether the ambush was finally successful we could not see.

Carrion crows were present - always in a thin scatter on or over the fields.

Furtive birds, as if possessed of bad conscience, or were blatantly guilty, caught out in some heinous offence against man.

One roadside outcrop of grey, exfoliating slate showed several layers of rock peeling away from the rock face like so many skins of an onion.

In several crevices, raggy gorse bushes were in full yellow bud, above clean-cut drill-holes made by a past generation of hard-working quarrymen.

Far below, where green fields were pockmarked by dark clumps of rushes, was a birch wood - where not even a wood pigeon stirred.

A glimpse of fieldfares diving over one tumbling grey wall did little to liven up the scene; it was indeed, dreary, damp winter everywhere.

An empty ruined barn did nothing to enliven the scene.

Once, it was a welcome stop for footsore chapmen and weary packhorse drivers crossing these windblown fells.

Those trades were killed off years ago, and the inn became barn.

Now it is a ruin, open to the sky, the roof vanished into a wreck of worm-eaten timbers and shattered roof slates piled inside tottering walls.

Forlorn, isolated, silent but for the wind's shrill whine, it yet bore signs of life!

I found a kestrel roost tucked into the tottering wall.

No sign of the bird - but the whitewash of droppings was bright and new!