Wild Hares and Hummingbirds

by Stephen Moss

  The ditches along Vole Road are filling up with plant life too, much of it of the floating variety. Duckweed and frogbit, looking rather like a miniature water lily, dominate. But from time to time I come across mats of water violet, with its tiny, pale lilac-pink flowers, whose feathery foliage covers the surface so effectively it looks as if you could walk right across without getting your feet wet. Quite a scarce plant, it thrives in these parts, where it is called by a variety of local names, including ‘cat’s eyes’ and ‘featherfoil’. At the water’s edge, I see the yellow flowers of celery-leaved buttercup, another fairly common plant in these muddy places. Its attractive yellow flowers conceal a rather unpleasant trait: the sap can poison cattle and cause human skin to break out in blisters: hence its alternative name of ‘cursed crowfoot’.

  The cow parsley and oil-seed rape that so dominated the byways of the parish a month or so ago have now died back. Their place has been taken by stands of hogweed which, as in my own garden, are covered with feeding insects. Nearby, on a metal five-barred gate, Brett spots another, larger insect. About half an inch long, it is a snipe-fly, often called the ‘down-looker fly’ because of its unusual habit of resting with its head pointing down towards the ground. The name snipe-fly is supposed to be due to its attenuated shape, like a snipe’s bill. But I wonder if it might also be due to its mottled coloration; the reddish-brown abdomen resembling the plumage of a snipe.

  The foliage along the ditches is home to what seem at first sight to be a whole range of different kinds of mollusc. Snails of all shades and patterns abound: some pale yellow, others strikingly black and white. Yet, in fact, all these snails belong to the same species, the white-lipped banded snail, also known as ‘humbug snails’ from their resemblance to the old-fashioned children’s sweet. Despite their varied appearance, these snails are genetically almost identical to each other – a bit like us, really.

  ON MIDSUMMER’S EVE, the half-moon rises in the southern sky. From the ancient drove that runs eastwards between Kingsway and Perry Road I can see, as usual, the church tower to the south, with the silhouette of Crook Peak to the north.

  An upturned, rusting bathtub, once a drinking trough for the local cattle, marks the halfway point along the drove. The hedgerows are taller and thicker than elsewhere in the parish; and are cut less frequently, creating high barriers on either side of the path. From deep within, a whitethroat utters its scolding call. The cowpats are hard as nails, as is the ground; very different from the muddy sludge I tramped through last winter.

  I am stirred from my reverie, first by a male pheasant shooting up from just beneath my feet; then by two roebucks which appear where the drove narrows, just before it emerges onto the lane. The first leaps out right in front of me, pauses, and looks round momentarily, before stotting away like an antelope on the African savannah. He is swiftly followed by the other, and for a moment I am able to take in the beauty of this, the smaller of our two native deer species. Each sports a tan coat, shading darker along the back; a quizzical face, framing a round, black nose, and long, pricked ears, with two short, pointed horns sticking straight up between them.

  The two bucks leap along the path before veering sharply off to the right, and plunging straight through a narrow gap in the hedge. I cycle along to where they disappeared, and peer through; they are already on the other side of the newly mown field, at least 200 yards away. In the weakening sunlight their tan colour stands out against the dark green foliage, as they stare towards me, ever alert to danger.

  Roe deer were hunted to extinction in England by the start of the eighteenth century, although they did manage to hang on in the wilder parts of Scotland. The Victorians brought them back here, and now I come across them in every season of the year: on cold days in winter, their breath freezing in the air; posing in the flower-covered fields in spring and summer; and in autumn, glowing in the late-afternoon sun. Yet any encounter with them – especially one as intimate as this one – always feels special.

  As I reach the junction between the drove and the lane, I catch a glimpse of two more shy creatures: a pair of bullfinches, perched on the edge of a hawthorn bush. In a family renowned for its charm and beauty, the bullfinch still stands out. This is partly because of its appearance: few British songbirds are quite as stunning as the male, with his combination of black head, white rump and vibrant, cherry-pink breast. You might think he would show off his finery, but the bullfinch is a shy bird.

  It is also, sadly, one of our most threatened, having declined dramatically throughout Britain during the past couple of decades, like so many other farmland and woodland birds. The bullfinch has never been popular where there are orchards, as it feeds on the young buds of fruit trees; enough to make enemies in this apple-growing county. But if you know where to look, bullfinches can still be found in the hedgerows and orchards of the parish. Often they reveal themselves by sound rather than sight: uttering their soft, plaintive, piping call, rather like a child’s toy. It always strikes me as rather sad; but this is simply the way we impose our own, human emotions on wild birds. I’m sure to a female bullfinch it is the most beautiful sound in the world.

  AS THE FINE, dry weather continues, the sound of the harvest being gathered in continues long into the evening. In the fields, in place of old-fashioned stooks of hay, there are now neat, round, glossy lumps of black polythene, like the droppings of a giant rabbit. Each casts a long evening shadow, its shiny surface reflecting a distorted image of the surrounding landscape. Their alien appearance in this rustic scene reminds me that whatever else we wish to use it for, the countryside remains primarily a food factory.

  Perched on a hawthorn bush, facing into the evening sun, sits a family of linnets. The male still shows traces of the pink breast patches he sports during the breeding season; the female and the youngsters are brown, speckled greyish-buff beneath. The linnet is the forgotten bird of our pastoral landscape: neither as attractive as the yellowhammer, nor as well known as the skylark. It is a quiet, modest creature, which like its relative the bullfinch has declined in the last few decades.

  The linnet family flies off into the field, joining a larger flock of linnets and goldfinches. They flit among the meadow barley and Yorkshire fog, past meadow brown butterflies, while swallows hawk for insects a few feet above their heads. The linnets and goldfinches perch on the tops of sorrels and pick off the seeds, their weight hardly bending the stalks; then take off, bouncing into the air on long, delicate wings, and uttering their light, tinkling calls.

  This is a welcome, though increasingly rare, sight. Fields in the parish, in the rest of Somerset and far beyond would once, at this time of year, have been filled with vast flocks of finches, buntings and sparrows. But the new agriculture – with productivity and efficiency at its core – has changed all this, by removing ‘waste’ seed that would have fed the birds.

  In the hour before dusk, two small tortoiseshells sit on the dry path, trembling their wings to gain a tiny amount of extra energy so they can continue feeding. Close to, they look like sunbathing birds: the hairy head and thorax contrasting with the burnt-orange wings, marked along their edges with black and bluish-mauve spots.

  Just like the linnet, the small tortoiseshell has become a far less frequent sight in recent years. This is since the arrival, spreading northwards, from continental Europe, of a new species of parasitic fly, Sturmia bella, which lays its eggs on the nettle leaves on which the tortoiseshell’s caterpillars feed. Once the caterpillar has inadvertently digested the fly’s eggs, the larva in turn devours the caterpillar from within. Having arrived on our shores a decade or so ago, this unwelcome parasite has rampaged throughout Britain, reducing small tortoiseshell numbers by half.

  Who would have thought that within ten years the small tortoiseshell, rather like the house sparrow, would have become a creature we now notice because of its scarcity, rather than one we ignored because of its ubiquity?

  EVERY MORNING AND evening, during the village rush ho
ur, if such a thing exists, our neighbours at Perry Farm drive their cattle the short stretch along the road to and from their pasture. The animals wander slowly towards the gate, by the sharp left-hand corner which marks the north-eastern border of our parish.

  Every morning, and every evening, the cattle do what cattle do. And once the day’s traffic has passed up and down, the cowpats are spread across the road like a thin layer of Marmite. Just before dusk falls, thousands of tiny insects gather to feed on the dung, while a brood of newly fledged pied wagtails comes to feed on the insects. They flutter back and forth on their new, inexperienced wings, taking advantage of this food bonanza.

  Meanwhile, a pair of swans is sitting in the field just behind the small ditch by the entrance to Perry Farm. The male and female are guarding five small, fluffy cygnets – each well over a foot long – which hatched out only a few days ago. The original ugly ducklings sit, flanked by their proud parents, among piles of white, downy feathers. As I pass, on my cycle ride home, the male lowers his neck and hisses aggressively. I pray that he and his family pass a quiet night, with no visit from the local fox.

  I realise, as I pedal the last short stretch back home, that half the year has gone.

  JULY

  JULY IS A month of stasis rather than dramatic change; a chance to reflect on the roller-coaster ride of the spring, and look ahead to the coming autumn. April was full of activity, as migrant birds arrived back in the parish from Africa, adding their voice to the resident chorus. Sunny days in May saw an onrush of wild flowers and butterflies; while on warm June nights huge and colourful hawkmoths, and dark and mysterious bats, emerged from their daytime hideaways.

  Soon, in August, swifts will pass overhead, flying purposefully south; and by September the swallows will gather on the telegraph wires, as red admirals bask beneath our cider-apple trees, enjoying the last warm rays of sunshine. But for now the whole scene is dulled by the lazy heat of long summer days. Even the dawn chorus is over: the tuneful orchestra that woke us each morning replaced by the incessant chacking of jackdaws, the plaintive cries of our neighbour’s peacocks, and a distant, mournful wood pigeon. There’s a good reason for this lapse into near silence. Now that the hard work of raising a family is over, the parent birds are hidden away in thick foliage, moulting into a brand-new set of feathers, in preparation for the colder weather to come. The youngsters are lying low, too, keeping out of sight to avoid the attentions of the local cats and sparrowhawks.

  My own attention has turned from birds to their smaller flying counterparts. July is the peak month for butterflies and moths, bumblebees and hoverflies, all making the most of abundant nectar in the hedgerows and flower beds around the village. As I make my way slowly along the wide and bumpy droves, I am accompanied by a constant hum; the sound of millions, perhaps billions, of insects, as they live out their brief lives among us in this quiet country parish.

  OF ALL THE insects that buzz, hum and flutter along the lanes, one of my favourites is the gatekeeper butterfly. Also known as the hedge brown, this alluring creature is a smaller and more elegant version of the widespread meadow brown butterfly. I am always struck by the brightness of the first gatekeeper I see: like the dust jacket of a brand-new book, the browns and oranges glowing in the summer sunshine. On sunny days in late July I have watched as the adults emerge en masse, dozens of them thronging the rhynes, before fluttering away to distant fields and gardens.

  The gatekeeper’s name refers to its habit of loitering alongside footpaths by the edges of fields, often close to stiles or gates. For the butterfly, this is the perfect place to live: with plenty of brambles, on whose small white and yellow flowers the adults feed; and patches of cock’s-foot, fescues and other grasses, where they can lay their tiny, ivory-coloured eggs.

  Like the meadow brown, the gatekeeper has two prominent ‘eyes’ – one on each forewing – to confuse predators. On seeing the ‘eye’ a hungry bird may be fooled into pecking at the butterfly’s wingtip rather than its body, which is why in late summer I often see both meadow browns and gatekeepers with part of their wingtips missing. Better to have a wonky flight-path than be dead, I suppose.

  The third butterfly in the ‘brown trio’, the wall brown, was once a common sight on the Somerset Levels, but since the 1960s has more or less disappeared. As with so many other iconic grassland species, from the skylark to the cornflower, this is a result of half a century of so-called agricultural ‘improvement’. The constant striving for higher yields, which can only be achieved by spraying the crops with a cocktail of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides, has turned much of lowland England into a sterile green desert.

  Some creatures do still manage to hang on: on warm July days I have seen the marbled white butterfly, which, despite its name, is another member of the ‘brown’ family. Like its relatives, the marbled white is dependent on rough grassland, its striking piebald pattern easily picked out as it flits across the meadows in the midday sun. I have even seen marbled whites fluttering along nearby motorway verges, one of the few areas of grassland to escape the chemical onslaught.

  FOR THE LOCAL farmers, it has been a good year so far. In wet summers, the second crop of silage is sometimes not cut until the end of August; but this year the first crop was taken in early June, and now the grass is growing, albeit slowly, for the second crop. Perversely, after praying for – and getting – fine weather, my farming neighbours are now hoping it will rain.

  Along the lanes, many of the verges have already been shorn of long grass, cow parsley and hogweed. Flocks of birds gather to feed on the spilt seeds: chaffinches and goldfinches, the odd reed bunting, and a pair of stock doves, all fly up as I walk past.

  As a herd of cattle grazes slowly along the banks of the Perry Road rhyne, just two weeks after the summer solstice, I see the first sign of autumn. A small flock of birds passes overhead, heading directly south-east. Starlings: about forty of them, flying towards the RSPB reserve at Ham Wall. By late November, millions will descend on the reserve each evening, whirling through the darkening sky and delighting the watching crowds.

  Although it is long before sunset, and swallows and swifts are still flying overhead, I still get the sense that the year has turned. The nights are gradually drawing in, and we are now nearer the end of the year than the beginning. The story of the parish and its wildlife, which until now has been one of anticipation, arrival and birth, has begun its gentle slide towards decline, departure and death. Only then, in another turn of nature’s wheel, will there be a rebirth.

  IN THE GARDEN, I see more signs of autumn. The first tiny, rock-hard apples are beginning to form: lime-green in colour, and still a long way from being eaten, cooked or turned into cider. Meanwhile, the hogweed is in rapid decline, its once creamy flower-heads now gone to seed. The meadow is awash with bindweed, its bell-shaped flowers forming a pleasing splash of white in the brownish-green landscape. Most gardeners despise this rampant flower, known as ‘devil’s guts’ for its ability to propagate itself from the smallest fragment of root, but botanical writer Geoffrey Grigson took a more benevolent view:

  Neither blasphemy, hoeing, nor selective weed-killers

  have yet destroyed it. One should speak kindly of its

  white and pink flowers, all the same.

  On sunny days the bindweed is visited by hordes of humming and buzzing insects. And another sound has been added to the summer soundtrack: the long, rough grass is filled with the calls of tiny field grasshoppers, which bounce all around me as I pass along the garden.

  I’ve only just noticed that the brief season for elderflowers is already over, the flower-heads rapidly darkening as they begin the process of turning into berries. I remember my mother and I collecting the soft, creamy blossoms, steeping them in boiling water, adding a pinch or two of yeast and bottling the liquid in huge, gallon-sized flagons. These would be left in the under-stairs cupboard until autumn, when a cloudy yellow liquid the colour and consistency of urine would be chec
ked, filtered, tasted and eventually pronounced to be an acceptable alternative to warm Liebfraumilch, the main drink of choice in those days.

  Later in the summer, towards the end of August, we would collect the elderberries, too; heavy purple bunches, crushed between our palms to release their deep magenta juice. I was never tempted to eat them – they were said to have a foul and bitter taste – but they did make a deep red wine. Nowadays, even the cheapest supermarket plonk would probably taste better, but it’s a pity that our modern drinking habits have lost the connection with the land, and its bounty, that my mother’s generation took for granted.

  Elder itself is a remarkable, if often overlooked, plant. Neither bush nor tree, it has been described as ‘the MDF of the plant world’, for its toughness, and ‘nature’s medicine chest’, for its widespread uses in traditional medicine. It has given rise to plenty of folklore, including the belief that Christ’s cross was made of elder wood. And back in the seventeenth century, men driving cattle along the droves to market are said to have cut themselves a stick of elder to ward away evil.

  AS THE HEAT intensifies through the long July days, it builds to a climax, before eventually releasing the tension with a summer thunderstorm. Signalling a change in the weather, swallows and house martins leave their nests and head skywards, gathering in large, twittering flocks. They fly just ahead of the rain clouds, where they pick off clusters of tiny insects to take back to their young. Sometimes they are joined by the more streamlined, scythe-like silhouettes of swifts, visitors from nearby towns and more distant cities. The swifts will soon disappear south, but the swallows and martins will linger here well into September, even perhaps October, before they and their off spring embark on their long and perilous journey to Africa.