A moment of fine uncertainty brought me to a halt. Was it? Surely it was. It must have been. What else could it be? And yet when I listened all I could here was the deafing wind.
Eddie and my father’s dog Bessie had walked with me away from marshes into the loftier fields we amusingly call “hills” in this part of Norfolk. Boy and dog were playing Bessieball; I was looking at the vastness of the sky in search of a small black dot.
But there were only clouds, light clouds with darker streaks, a silver sabled. And now I couldn’t hear it at all. Chaffinch, wren and dunnock in the scrubs behind me, couple of rooks and a black-headed gull in flight. I looked again for a tiny black yoyo being slowly reeled up on an invisible string, but it had gone. If it was there in the first place.
I bet it was though. A sudden underheard snatch of poured and pelted music from high above: it could only have been a skylark, the first of the spring, full of hot urgency on this chilly day.
Perhaps it was on its way down now. The field before me was stubble, open, flat: just what I’d choose if I was a skylark, at least if I had guarantees from the farmer that the field would remain unploughed. I’m certain to hear a skylark in this spot later this spring.
But here was an ambiguous anticipation, half skylark, half my own familiarity with the song. Teasingly, he offered no confirmation, leaving me to wonder if I had imagined it, taken a jumble of notes from the other birds and fitted them to my skylark memory.
Come. Time to move. Eddie and Bessie needed their suppers, and the skylark, if it was a skylark, needed his rest. What times we’ll all have in the warmer days. Such larks, Pip. Such larks.
So pleased to have you back in print at the weekend – it made my Sunday.
Thank you for those kind words.
Fantastic piece. I heard my first skylark of the year on a cold, sunny day last week. I was out running round my local farm and I heard it between heavy breaths (I’m a bit out of practice). Unmistakable and absoluely beautiful
In my view, they’re even better when you’re standing still.
Brilliant to read about the skylark. It took me back to when, as a child in the 1950s, , I lived on a farm in Cheshire. I used to carry the farm workers’ “baggin” out to them at 11am and so often to the song of the skylark. Happy memories. Thank you.
The world needs more skylarks.
Thanks, I felt as if I was there. If I ever get enough money I’ll buy fields just to accommodate them.
Good on you – I hope you fulfil that fine ambition.
I was lucky enough to hear and see a skylark yesterday on the downs above Patching in West Sussex. It was a beautiful pseudo-spring morning and in addition to the lark , we were treated to a hare running across a field at full pelt , a pair of buzzards and finally a red kite gliding lazily over the tree tops! Glorious.
What better way to spend a morning?
I have yet to see or hear a skylark yet this year, but by heck Simon you bring tears to my eyes just thinking about it!
Thanks as ever Anthony.
We heard and saw our first skylark this year whilst walking near Dunwich Suffolk on 24th February.
You did well there, hope you’ve heard many more since.
“So pleased to have you back in print at the weekend”…where, where?? didn’t see it, and I at least want to know what to buy/not buy to catch your printed musings.
Secondly, back when I was still employed and living in a “village”/dormitory suburb to Leicester, one very frosty morning, having come out of the house and waiting for the bus to work, I was transfixed by the sight and sound of a lark rising up singing.
Made me feel warm, despite the temperature and wind-chill factor.
And, much more recently, while walking with friends down in Kent in a “forest” (i.e., mostly open heathland, originally some Lord’s hunting estate), in the pouring rain, up went a skylark, singing its heart out. Inevitably, we stopped, despite the weather, for many seconds.
Ain’t nature wonderful!