January, the sportsman’s month

“The vixen’s call promises spring, fecundity, regrowth and warmth”

January and the depths of bleak mid-winter: the gradual change in the weather cycle is more noticeable this month than any other. Forty years ago in the Borders, a heavy fall of snow was inevitable but now we can expect anything from snow to bitter iron-hard frost, driving rain, a freezing east wind that takes the skin off your face, or a westerly warm enough to bring puzzled winter sleepers stumbling blearily from their hibernacula – be warned, I once had a terrier bitten by an adder in the middle of the month. Regardless of the weather, I do love the stark beauty of January; the empty hedgerows, the bare, leafless trees, their naked branches reaching for grey, brooding winter skies; rooks flighting home to roost in the gloaming, geese calling under the moon, the heavy silence of woodland and the musty smell of decaying leaves.

There is an atmosphere of expectancy about January, particularly the early part, which has nothing to do