There have been some fine displays of catkins in hedgerows here, but none compares with the corkscrew hazel flowering outside my window. It’s a mutant form of native hazel, with a compact canopy of sinuous branches that have lost all sense of direction: they spiral, twist, curl, bend and sometimes double back on themselves. For the last two weeks, they have been smothered in a curtain of long golden catkins. This afternoon, tree sparrows are using the tree as a staging post, en route to the bird feeders. When they land the catkins dance, shedding ephemeral, will-o’-the-wisp clouds of golden pollen.
