Springwatch Walk at Spring at Wainsgate with Paul Knights

Springwatch at Wainsgate: Noticing the Turn of the Year
This guided walk begins and ends at Wainsgate Chapel and explores the surrounding fields, lanes, woodland edges and open moor at a moment of seasonal transition, just after the spring equinox and the day before the clocks spring forward. Across three miles, lasting approximately two hours, participants will be invited to notice winter loosening its grip and spring properly arriving in the landscape.
Rather than a talk about nature, this will be a walk with attention. The emphasis is on listening as much as looking: to birdsong returning to the fields and moors, to wind and water, to subtle shifts in light, and to the quiet signs of growth beginning again after winter. Late March is a particularly rich time here, with curlew and lapwing back on the high ground, early flowers emerging along lanes and field edges and lambing underway.
Along the way, participants will be invited to pause, to listen, to notice and to share what they are observing. Some short periods of silence will be part of the walk, creating space for deeper attention and reflection. Wainsgate Chapel will act as a kind of listening post in the landscape: a place that has always been reached on foot, in all weathers and seasons, and whose congregation, over generations, would have walked through these same seasonal changes year after year.
Running quietly in the background will be themes of transition and renewal: the balance point of the equinox, the return of light after darkness, and the idea that careful listening – to the land, to wildlife, and to one another – matters, especially in uncertain times.
The walk is suitable for adults and for children aged 8 and over. Well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome. Participants should be aware that there will be some uneven and rougher ground on the moor, and that moments of quiet listening will be part of the experience.