by Stephen Moss
As I pass along Vole Road, a crescendo of sound alerts me to a newly fledged brood of reed warblers. For almost two months, their parents have skulked in the depths of the reedbeds, but now these birds show the bravado of youth, as they clamber to the tops of the hedgerows and scold me for my presence. They test out their wings, flitting clumsily from twig to twig, and showing off their neat new juvenile plumage, warm rufous above and ochre-yellow below. I can hear the adult male chuntering away, blithely ignored by his offspring.
The recent fine weather has been welcomed by the village farmers, who are working late into the evenings to gather in the grass before the rain returns. The fields have been sheared as close as the local sheep, leaving a cropped yellowish surface in place of the former lush, deep green. In the past few decades there has been a noticeable shift from growing hay – which needs days of fine weather at just the right time of year – to silage, a more dependable crop, but one that lacks the romance of the old ways of haymaking. Across most of Britain the traditional hay meadow our grandparents would have known, with its annual extravaganza of wild flowers, is now just a fading memory.
For some creatures, however, it doesn’t really matter which method is being used. Now that the tractor has passed, rooks and jackdaws throng the short turf, their sharp, pointed bills digging into the soil for leatherjackets to feed themselves and their youngsters, if any remain in the nest. Low across each newly cut field, swallows are vacuuming up flying insects disturbed by the mower’s blades. In between those cut for silage, the other fields alongside the road retain a luxurious growth of summer vegetation: ribwort plantain, grasses and buttercups, intermingled with spikes of common sorrel, their nut-brown foliage showing up against the light green vegetation around them.
Along the rhynes and ditches, the surface of the water is completely covered with a thin film of duckweed; while the reeds themselves, although not quite as high as an elephant’s eye, are certainly higher than mine. These waterways have at last got their own splash of colour, with tall, yellow flag irises – known locally as ‘butter-and-eggs’ – whose rich hue stands out from the duller greens and browns of the surrounding landscape. Described by the Victorian naturalist Richard Jeffries as ‘bright lamps of gold’, these stately plants brighten up even a dull June day.
Like every corner of the parish, Vole Road has its own special character. Here, the hedgerows are thicker, denser and closer together than the more open southern and eastern parts; and the landscape feels somehow more warm, snug and safe. Pheasants certainly think so: this is one of the few places where I regularly hear their distinctive, rough bark, and occasionally catch a glimpse of a cock bird strutting in the shadows of a tall hedgerow.
Pheasants have been in Britain for at least a thousand years, since the Norman Conquest, and it is thought they probably arrived even earlier, with the Romans. Originally from south-west Asia, they owe their ubiquity to being plump, easy to catch and good to eat: in some ways a fatal combination, yet also their trump card, for without their status as a game bird there would be far fewer. But in our parish, pheasants remain pretty thin on the ground. The land here is simply too wet for them to thrive, so there is little or no shooting; and without pheasant shooting there are usually very few pheasants. Certainly compared to the countryside in East Anglia they are quite a rarity here.
The biggest danger to the few resident pheasants comes from a supremely wily and adaptable local predator: the fox. And sure enough, as I head off northwards, I come across not just one, but two foxes, each standing alone in the centre of a large, open, recently mown field.
In recent years, as foxes have moved into our city centres, there has been much debate about the habits of this opportunistic mammal. Several observers have concluded that urban foxes are more or less the same as their rural cousins. Genetically this may be true, but behaviourally they are worlds apart. Having lived in both city and countryside, I know that if I so much as look at a rural fox, it will turn and run; whereas their urban cousins will stare you down with an expression bordering on insolence. In this part of rural England at least, foxes know to fear any man; even though I carry no weapon, and mean them no harm.
As the sun finally sets over Brent Knoll, the sky to the east is awash with rain, and the grey blanket is drifting rapidly eastwards, chasing the departing light. Jackdaws head west towards the church tower, chacking away into the gloom. And as night finally falls, and the villagers settle down to watch the ten o’clock news, first pinpricks, then splashes, and finally great sheets of rain begin to fall.
THE RAIN IS, as always, welcomed by the village gardeners, whose lawns and flower beds are beginning to suffer from this long, dry spell. And welcomed, too, by the local farmers, including our neighbour Rick. I say neighbour, but although Rick owns the farmyard next door, he actually lives several miles away on the western side of the village. Like many farmers in these parts, he owns scattered parcels of land all over the parish and beyond, including the wet meadows of Tealham Moor.
Back in April, I bumped into Rick at the Highbridge Young Farmers’ seventy-fifth anniversary dinner and dance. As neither of us is known for his ballroom skills, we got talking about local customs, so many of which are dying out. He told me that before the war his late father Reg, something of a local legend, used to go bat-fowling.
To Rick’s surprise, I knew what he meant by this peculiar phrase. Also known as bird-batting, it involved using a torch to flush roosting birds, then catching them in a large net. Apparently Reg and his friends wandered along the village’s hedgerows on autumn nights, catching thrushes and blackbirds. ‘What happened to them?’ I asked innocently. ‘He ate them,’ Rick replied with commendable brevity.
Rick then tried out another local custom on me: ray-balling. This time, I had no idea what he meant, so he explained that it is a way of luring eels in order to catch them. And when he told me that he still goes out ray-balling on summer evenings, I asked if I might tag along.
THE INVITATION COMES out of the blue, on the evening after the heavy rains. Children are fed, my weekly badminton game cancelled, and as dusk falls we head eastwards to Tealham Moor, filled with a delicious anticipation. We are a mixed bunch: Rick, his wife Heather, various sons, daughters-in-law and friends, and our leader Dennis. Large and bearded, with a ready wit, strong opinions and a jaw that gets plenty of exercise, Dennis is definitely a local character. Now in his sixties, he has been ray-balling for more than half a century, ever since his grandfather first took him out on a warm summer’s night, back in the 1950s.
With ray-balling, as with many country pursuits, the equation between effort and reward might seem tipped against it. The work required to assemble the equipment, all of which needs to be made at home, seems colossal. But as Dennis explains, with an eel providing more protein than a fillet steak, it is well worth it.
For an hour before sunset, in Rick’s farmyard, Dennis and Rick have threaded dozens of worms (collected by the bucketful the previous night) onto strong, stout pieces of thread. The worms form a series of concentric rings, which when dipped into the water fan out into a sphere: the ray-ball itself.
On the lower, northern bank of the Brue, next to a Second World War pillbox, Dennis finds the perfect spot. As dusk falls, we sit on the soft, yielding riverbank, and dip our metal poles into the murky water. Midges bite, bats flit in the star-studded darkness and, somewhere in the distance, a pheasant coughs twice, before falling silent.
Ray-balling is, Dennis tells me, a contact sport. Along the length of the pole I can feel the muddy bottom of the river and, following his advice, I slowly move the pole up and down, allowing the scent of the worms to disperse through the water. Eels hunt by smell, swimming upstream and eating everything they can find. Once they have grabbed onto something with their powerful jaws, it takes a lot to make them let go; a strength we hope to turn into a weakness, allowing us to catch them.
Time passes without a single bite, as the metallic calls of a nearby moorhe
n echo in the darkness. Then, without warning, I feel a tug on the pole, and a vibration. I lift it out of the water, but too tentatively, seeing a silvery flash disappear back into the river. I may have had first bite, but am annoyed that I let it go. ‘Now you can see why I call it a contact sport,’ laughs Dennis.
Twenty minutes later, another tug, another vibration. This time I lift the pole in one rapid sweep, and somehow manage to get it over the metal tub Dennis has placed in the river. I have judged it right: and a long, yellowish-green creature drops off the bunch of worms and into the tub. An eel: not a very big one, but an eel nonetheless.
Of all the creatures I have seen in the parish, the eel must surely have the most extraordinary life cycle. All the world’s baby eels – known as elvers – are born in the depths of the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean between the West Indies and Bermuda. Once hatched, these tiny fish drift across the ocean, carried by the warming currents of the Gulf Stream until, several years later, they reach the waters around Britain. Gradually, the tide washes them into our estuaries, including Bridgwater Bay to the west of here. Then they travel inland: some swimming upstream, others, incredibly, wriggling over the land. Once they are in the river system they feed and grow for many years. Finally, having reached maturity, they head back to the Sargasso Sea, a journey of some three thousand miles, where they lay their eggs and die.
Once eels were so common in these parts that, according to the Domesday Book, they were used to pay the rent. Even in my lifetime, villagers recall seeing hundreds of eels thrashing around in farm pools during thundery weather, desperate for oxygen; or watching them cross over the land, slithering over muddy fields on their way from one watercourse to another.
But in the past twenty years, the numbers of elvers coming upstream has plummeted. No one knows exactly why: it could be that climate change has caused a shift in the ocean currents; or perhaps barriers installed to control flooding are blocking their way. One sure reason for the decline is the illegal poaching of elvers, which are caught in their tens of thousands, and sold as a delicacy to the Asian market at more than £200 a pound. So eels are no longer the abundant creature they once were; and if the decline continues, they may soon disappear from our rivers.
Dennis tells us stories of the old days, when half a dozen people would gather along this very stretch of riverbank, catching eel after eel; sometimes well over a hundredweight in a single night. He would take them home, skin them and soak them overnight in brine, and in the morning fry them up with butcher’s bacon: ‘All fat – not a bit of lean!’ The neighbours enjoyed the bounty too: Dennis would give away half the eels, and feast on the rest for days afterwards. As he speaks, that balance between effort and reward makes perfect sense.
Though not, sadly, this time. At one in the morning, we call it a night. The eel I caught is still the only one in the tub: a slender, pale creature, perhaps one foot long, and weighing 4 or 5 ounces. Nevertheless, it has been a privilege to take part in this ancient rural custom, and to hear how it was once part and parcel of seasonal life here on the levels. And as Dennis sagely notes, ‘Fishing isn’t about catching. If it were about catching, it’d be called “catching”, not “fishing”.’
We let the eel go, and it slithers away into the murky waters, out of sight.
OTHER CREATURES OF the night are less elusive, though just as enigmatic as the eel. There are roughly 2,500 different kinds of moths in Britain, compared with fewer than 60 species of butterfly. Yet although they are here in their millions, during the long summer days they are virtually invisible. Our lives only occasionally intersect, when coincidences in time and space collude to bring us together.
On warm summer nights, as I drive home after dark, I see them reflected in my headlights as they flutter around the back lanes of the parish. Early in the mornings, my daughter Daisy brings me one clasped in her hands, caught as it tried to escape through the bathroom window. And on hot summer Sunday afternoons as I push the lawnmower over the lush grass, they shoot out from beneath its blades, temporarily evicted from their home.
To enter the mysterious world of moths, and reveal their bizarre beauty, we must resort to trickery. So at dusk, on a warm, overcast June evening, I set the trap. This is a large, circular, black plastic tub, with a round hole at the centre of its lid, onto which a mercury vapour bulb is mounted. When illuminated, this acts like a magnet for every moth in the area, drawing them inexorably in to investigate this unexpected source of light.
The theory behind the trap is a simple one. Moths use the moon to navigate, so when they encounter this incredibly bright light, they use it to orient themselves. But because the light is only a few yards away – compared with roughly 250,000 miles from my garden to the moon – they fly around it in rapidly decreasing circles, until they reach the centre of the trap.
The bulb is bright but cool, so they avoid being fried as they come into contact with its surface. After bumping into it they drop down, and slide effortlessly down plastic chutes into the tub, unable to escape. There is no need for food: most adult moths never feed anyway, as their caterpillars have done enough eating for one lifetime. So they simply hide away among the egg cartons I have placed there for that very purpose, and wait until morning.
As I turn the light on, and watch as its dull, purplish glow begins to strengthen, I am immediately aware of the presence of moths. The ubiquitous large yellow underwings bash into me as they fly headlong towards the trap. A buff ermine – furry, creamy-yellow, with delicate strokes of black – lands momentarily on my leg, before it too launches itself in the direction of the light. And all over the lawn, tiny, wraith-like grass moths begin their nocturnal adventures.
Another, larger moth is fluttering over the lawn, ignoring the attractions of the trap. Like a helicopter hovering above a rainforest, it moves steadily up and down across the same patch of grass, in a rhythmic, purposeful movement. It is a ghost swift, and of all our moths I think it the most bewitching. This is a male: an inch long and pure white in colour. In the twilight the whiteness makes him look larger than he is; his wings fluttering in an incessant blur, creating a haunting image on my retina.
His behaviour may appear odd, but he is doing it for a reason. The female, larger and yellower than the male, is hiding somewhere in the long grass below, giving off a pheromone that drives the male into this frenzied state. So as darkness falls, he swings to and fro like a pendulum, desperately seeking her out, until eventually she puts him out of his misery by reaching up to pull him down into her grassy lair to mate.
But as I watch the ghost swift swing to and fro over the lawn, its nocturnal perambulations equal in beauty and complexity to any of nature’s courtship rituals, I forget about any scientific explanation for this bizarre behaviour, and simply enjoy the show.
NEXT MORNING, THE ghost swift has vanished, but the trap is filled with a profusion of his relatives. Opening a moth trap is the bug-hunters’ equivalent of Christmas morning, except that all your presents are trying to escape. The trick is to catch as many of the interesting moths as possible, temporarily incarcerating them in small, plastic containers in order to get a good view; and, if possible, identify them. I am always struck by their sheer variety: from tiny ‘micros’, so small and obscure I don’t even try to give them a name, to huge hawkmoths, the most prized members of this panoply of shape, form and colour.
The evocative names of these moths link us directly with the naturalists who chose them. Take the selection I have before me on this bright June morning: blood vein, mottled beauty, light emerald, white ermine, buff ermine, heart and dart, flame shoulder, common wainscot, poplar grey, angle shades, marbled minor, burnished brass, ruby tiger, riband wave and straw dot.
What wonderful, imaginative, utterly bizarre names. Names bestowed by eccentric Victorian naturalists, who sought out their quarry with net, lamp and chloroform, pinning them to a board, then hiding them away in polished oak cabinets for later generations to open in wonder. Names I now he
ar on my children’s lips, as they gleefully point out a familiar visitor, or question me about the identity of a new one.
Just like birds, some of these moths are residents, living the whole of their brief lives within the borders of the parish. Others, like the silver Y, are migrants, flying here all the way from Spain each summer. The silver Y is named after the distinctive Y-shaped marking on its wings; also reflected in its scientific name, Autographa gamma.
One of the objects in the trap doesn’t, at first sight, resemble a living creature at all. Just over an inch long, silvery-grey in colour, it looks exactly like the twig of a silver birch; roughly snapped off at one end and neatly cut with a sharp penknife at the other, to reveal clean, bright, yellowish-buff wood.
Then this inanimate object does something dazzling. It opens its wings, revealing that it isn’t a twig at all, but a moth: the buff-tip. The buff-tip is one of the most remarkable creatures I am ever likely to see in my garden. Not because it is rare – there are three in the trap this morning – but because it is the finest example I have ever seen of animal camouflage. The shades and markings exactly mimic a birch twig, even down to the rough silvery film on the surface. When it closes its wings, only two antennae, poking unobtrusively out of the narrow end, reveal that it is alive at all. It makes the chameleon look like a rank amateur.
The other extraordinary moth in this morning’s selection sports one of the loveliest combinations of colour I have ever seen in nature, or indeed anywhere else. About 1½ inches long and 2 inches across, its body and wings are a deep olive-green with a yellowish tinge, streaked with a lurid salmon-pink, as if it has been coloured with a fluorescent highlighter pen. If this combination of colour and design appeared on the Paris catwalk, you wouldn’t be at all surprised.