All the certainty of a message in a bottle

Waresley Wood, Cambridgeshire If the chances of fertilisation are a million to one, then there must be millions of millions of pollen specks drifting invisibly

Down the main ride of the wood the hazel bushes are waiting for the wind to shake their booty. I feel a cooling of my left cheek and an almost imperceptible waft jiggles the lambs' tail catkins, though only a little. Gently shaken, barely stirred, they come to rest; the wait goes on.

Spring is surging up from the hazel's roots, feeding branches with nutrients, showing power in swelling buds. Yet the vital process of reproduction is left to a whim of a breeze.