The long, languid flowers and sword-like green leaves of flag irises rise up from the boggy ground – ornate yellow and green fountains glowing in the warming sun. The head of each iris consists of three large drooping sepals. These yellow landing platforms are marked with dark lines that invite pollinating insects into their hearts, beneath overhanging petals and stamens, which deposit the pollen on the obliging visitors.
The air is already humming with insects. A large white-tailed bumble bee, its body dotted with pollen, reverses out of an iris flower, shimmers its wings and moves off in search of another. From two trees either side of the bog, two blackcaps warble furiously at each other in competition for territory.
A female broad-bodied chaser floats past and settles on a bramble twig. The soft-yellow dragonfly has probably only emerged this morning. Her wings quiver as I stand as still as I can, not breathing, looking closely. The tiny black veins that support the transparent wings turn bright yellow where they cross on to the black wing patches next to the muscular thorax.
I wander out through the gate and up on to the riverbank. The riverside meadow is in bloom. Bright yellow buttercups and pink heads of red clover sparkle like dots of paint flecking the swaying green grasses and bushes.
Slender damselflies are also emerging from the vegetation, the thin, pale blue dashes flickering over the flowers. The rhythmic ratchet song of a reed warbler carries across the river from the opposite bank, and I can just make out a distant cuckoo calling.
The river Arun is flowing fast. Branches and twigs turn and twist in the brown, eddying currents. My eye is drawn to one of the branches, which is moving against the flow, resisting the downstream pull.
The dull grey-green grass snake is swimming across the river, propelling itself through the dark water. Its head, marked with black stripes and a pale collar, is raised above the water, and its yellow and black eyes stare intently at the bank. Calmly, slowly, it powers into the reeds and out of view.
