We will surely remember the flood of January 2024: the time when the valley was transformed into a waterland. For those who did not have to suffer the consequences of rising water, the floods, glinting like silver in the low winter light, were not only beautiful but reminiscent of how our valley might have looked before our distant ancestors tamed the flood with drains, culverts and mills. One wonders how the fish coped with these unusual conditions. Trout spawn in river-gravel ‘redds’ in December and the eggs take a couple of months to hatch. Presumably, then, some of the eggs were flushed away, or smothered in silt on days when the river turned the colour of Horlicks. They say fish tend to keep to slack waters at such times, but a fisherman I spoke to said it is common to find small fish some distance from the river, washed out into the floodplain. How many of them find their way back as the flood subsides?
Before Christmas many of the hawthorns on the old airfield were heavy with crimson berries. By mid-January, although some berries remained, the bushes were mostly stripped. I suspect that most of them vanished down the gullets of fieldfares, which seem exceptionally common this winter. The other stand-out colour in the winter landscape are the bright orange twigs of willow and poplar, which can glow like Belisha beacons when the sunlight strikes them. By mid-January the yellow ‘lamb’s-tails’ hazel catkins were already ripe and yielding puffs of sulphur-like pollen to the cold wind. But, given the floods, I suspect snowdrops will be delayed this year - though, since the bulbs will float, they may appear in new places.
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