Deciding to make a break for it between the wintry showers of yesterday, we went for drive up the Yarrow valley, heading towards St Mary’s Loch and eventually up to the Megget and Talla Reservoirs. Yesterday it was like travelling back in time as we passed from spring back into winter. In the lower reaches of the valley, nearer Selkirk, the banks of the Yarrow Water were moving rapidly onwards with spring. The trees were all moving towards leaf, with the buds swelling, some had even burst to form masses of tiny leaves. Amongst which the Wild Cherry’s were showing the occasional pinky white bloom, and the Ash buds had swollen and broken to form a mass of closely packed purple anthers. While underneath the canopy, the Blackthorns were a mass of white blooms, forming what could almost be snow drifts along the banks.
Blackthorn Blossoms – Yarrow – 10 April 2012 (Copyright – Carol Jones 2012)
As we headed up stream the development of spring begins to lag behind, the trees had not burst into leaf, their buds were hardly swollen and only the occasional Blackthorn flower could be seen. At this stage the Blackthorn flowers had only developed as far as forming large white buds, and were awaiting a few more hours of sunshine before bursting out. Above, the hills open out and remain in their winter dormancy, a mix of browns and greens, formed from the mosaic of grass and close cropped Heather, occasionally broken up by dark bluey green from patches of conifers. Here the main signs of spring are highlighted only by the large yellow patches of flowering Gorse, across the valley bottom, amongst the remaining browns and greens of last years grass.
Craig Douglas Burn – 10 April 2012 (Copyright – Carol Jones 2012)
Above St Mary’s Loch and on towards the reservoirs of Megget and Talla, winter still firmly griped the hills, as they were sprinkled with a recent fall of snow. But this whiteness of the new snow, brings a kind of warm to the newly flushed growth of bryophytes, that push through the dead remains of last years grass, warming at least the closest views with a rich golden green tinge, against the browns above.
Nickies Knowe – 10 April 2012 (Copyright – Carol Jones 2012)
As to Blackthorn Winter – as Blackthorns often flower in March, well at least further south in England, during periods of cold easterly winds, a cold spring was often called a Blackthorn Winter.
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