Season’s Greetings

By ROWAN LANNING Ecologist, IRD Duhallow

Welcome to The Ecology Corner, a new column in Discover Duhallow dedicated to the flora, fauna, and wider environment of our Duhallow region!

We begin at the onset of spring in February, where winter still feels present but the earliest of blossoms are starting to herald warmer days and longer evenings to come.

Each season you can expect:

• An exploration of the scientific and folkloric properties of native trees and plants which appear or are significant to the season

• Tips and tricks for how to best work with and for our wildlife through the season

• An update on where the fauna of Duhallow are in their life cycles of the year, which animals you may see out and about and what their behaviour might tell you

• Recipes for creating tasty treats or medicinal remedies using the wild-foraged plants in abundance during the season

• Recipes for creating tasty treats or medicinal remedies using the wild-foraged plants in abundance during the season

• The wild and wonderous world of Duhallow’s water whether in streams, rivers, wetlands, or wells – as well as the fantastic Duhallow locals working to protect and restore good water quality throughout our catchments.

Spring has always been a season of great hustle and bustle as we emerge from winter into the work of the year. Spring means calves, lambs, the end to the hedge cutting season, preparing the ground for planting and the sowing of seeds. It also means rain – and lots of it.

One saying recorded from just outside Duhallow in Longueville, Mallow, within the National Folklore Collection’s Schools Collection states:

(As regards the appearance of leaves on trees in spring)

“If the ash is out before the oak, There will be a soak. If the oak is out before the ash, There will be a splash”

Other entries to the National Folklore Collection describe games and pasttimes beloved by children in the spring. For example one child notes:

The following are our games for past-time: playing marbles in Spring.

While another in elaborates: In Spring time I spin tops. I play marbles and I skate on the ice. The way we play tops is some one will spin his top another would peg it and if you hit him he will have to put down again. The way you would play marbles is one would go at each end of a flag and put a half penny in the middle and which ever one would hit it first would win it.

Another child says:

In the Spring we amuse ourselves by catching birds with birdlime.

Birdlime is an adhesive substance applied to a branch or twig used to trap birds, although this practice has been illegal for many decades since (alongside any other form of glue trap) and most people prefer to feed and watch the birds instead.

What are your favourite spring past-times and sayings? What plants and animals are you most looking forward to seeing return as the evenings stretch and the ground starts to warm?

Stay tuned for the next edition of The Ecology Column where we’ll explore the humble birch tree.