Eighteen linnets chased us up the steep, stony track. They had been feeding down on the roadside dandelion clocks, but now they seemed as keen to get up to the heath as we were. The hilltop is wild with heather and rough grass, the slope below tame with quiet pastures. The flock danced ahead, their calls as spiky as the gorse they come from.
Through the gate the landscape sprang to life. A stonechat made his pebble-tapping call; a skylark flew up, bubbled a few notes and dropped down again. In the short, dry turf lay tiny funnel webs of spiders – holding the last of the dew they looked as delicate and white as snowflakes.
Behind us, the Somerset Levels were obscured by a soupy haze; after weeks of cloudless blue, the air was preparing for rain. The grey sallows were living up to their name but down in the old winter grass the upside-down-pansy faces of the common dog violets, Viola riviniana, were earning theirs, in shades from pale lilac to bold purple. Down in a miry crevice the first marsh violet, Viola palustris – which has rounded rather than heart-shaped leaves – had opened its strange little puckered and dark-veined eye. And on the north side of the hill, high above the green valley that had turned to shades of smoke and slate in the haze, we reached the bluebells.
It is said that almost half the world’s bluebells live in Britain and their woodland strongholds are rightly treasured. But up here, on the north face of Black Down, they march across the open hillside, encouraged by the light soil, maintained by the damp climate, and protected from the summer heat by a forest of bracken. Despite two hot weeks of sunshine, they were only just beginning to bloom, so we had to search the crumpled flanks of the hill for the sheltered places. South-facing banks, slopes protected from cold winds by barricades of hawthorn; in these harbours they were in full sail, impossibly blue under such a grey sky. Furry, black St Mark’s flies, legs dangling, drifted through tranquil air that was full of the scent and light of bluebells. And this was just the beginning.
